KEY POINTS:
The Environment Court has given the go-ahead for a heliport at Warkworth, rejecting neighbours' complaints that noise from up to 60 flights a day will shatter the peace of their country lifestyle.
The court disallowed an appeal by the Dome Valley Residents' Society against Skywork's plan to set up a base fronting State Highway 1, about 3km northeast of Warkworth.
It also allowed Skywork to store and handle aviation fuel on the rural site, which had been banned by a Rodney District Council-appointed panel.
The company sought resource consent so it could shift from Baddeleys Beach Rd, Omaha, after Rodney District Council and residents hobbled its expanding operations.
"I'm rapt we got there at last but it's taken seven years and three months, $700,000 and a lot of heartache," Skywork chief pilot and director Roger Stevenson said yesterday.
Mr Stevenson and his wife, Miriam, fought their case in a string of council hearings and in the Environment and High Courts so their 11-year-old business could meet a growing demand for flights.
Their work ranges from firefighting on Kawau Island to spraying and topdressing for forestry and farms to ferrying conservation staff and taking tourists on scenic flights.
Mr Stevenson said he was confident he could operate within the conditions imposed by the Environment Court, which included conforming to the New Zealand Standard for helicopter noise in landing areas.
An exemption from the night-time standard to allow for medical and fire-fighting emergency flights was allowed.
It was supported by the council, which said public interest outweighed any adverse effects such as disturbing neighbours' sleep.
The residents' society was formed in response to the heliport application, and has about 150 members.
Its chairman, Barry Gillespie, has lived next door to the site for 40 years.
"We are terribly disappointed and will be pursuing an appeal to the High Court," he said yesterday.
He said there was anger that the council had let the area down by aiding the heliport's shift, when Kaipara Flats Airfield would have been a better location.
"Lots of housing surrounds the site. They are idyllic country residences ... lifestyle, magnificent places, lovely big homes, bush-clad and with little streams running through and they have that to contend with."
Mr Gillespie said a heliport would bring deafening noise to Warkworth, including schools and retirement villages, and would spoil the showgrounds where the council was spending millions on development.
