After a marathon discussion lasting more than an hour, councillors voted unanimously in favour of council investing $5 million into the runway extension, the required matching funding to go with the $5 million grant it received from the federal government's Regional Airports Program fund, and proceeding with the design, tender and construction of the project.

After an amendment to the original motion, moved by central ward councillor Samantha McIntosh, council also noted the extension was contingent on support from the state government and/or federal government in recognising the Ballarat West Employment Zone masterplan and the construction of a new road to provide access to the airport.

The $10 million spend will fund stage one of the three-part Ballarat Airport Masterplan, which is estimated to cost more than $30 million in total.

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The runway is expected to be extended from 1200 metres to between 1800 and 2000 metres to accommodate larger aircraft, but the lengthening will not allow the airport to be used by commercial passenger aircraft, which requires further strengthening work.

The planned extension of the current runway is expected to run across what is currently Airport Road, the main vehicle access road into the airport precinct, and would require a new road from BWEZ, called Liberator Drive, to be built for airport access.

Chief executive Evan King said in approving the plan, council is asking Development Victoria to bring forward its plans to build Liberator Drive as part of BWEZ, either to the same standard as Airport Drive, or to its full capacity.

In addition to funding the upgrade, councillors also endorsed the creation of a 'more commercially focused' management structure for the airport.

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Mr King said the nature of that management structure would be explored by council and focus on the airport generating profits, to be reinvested back into it in the longer term.

Councillors received six presentations regarding the matter, including representatives of the Committee for Ballarat, FieldAir and the Ballarat Light Car Club.

Cr McIntosh said there were some businesses at the airport who were forced to use other airports due to the size of the current runway.

"If the state government were to come on board and put $2 million towards Liberator Drive, that is likely to unlock the potential, in the very short term, of an extra $20 million of investment," she said.

Cr Peter Eddy said council could not put the cart before the horse.

"I think a mistake would be to take this step and start jumping ahead to other steps without really consolidating and demonstrating to the community and all the stakeholders involved that we can actually get this project right," he said.

Mayor Daniel Moloney said this was the first stage of the masterplan only with no further spending planned by council.

"I want to be incredibly clear and to the point that there is no intention of any further capital spending at this point in time from this council. In fact, I would be surprised during this term of council if there's anything further committed to it... It's really unlocking land potential and helping to bolster the aviation industry."

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