MALMESBURY AVIATION ESTATE (MAE)
Proposed Development in Brief
Proposed is an Aviation Estate outside Malmesbury for leisure flying enthusiasts. The Estate consists of 371 Erven each with its own hangar, plus additional hangars for hire. This will service at least 371 aero planes, helicopters, gyrocopters, etc. Associated will be a 2.1 km runway, helicopter pads and landing sites, fuel storage facilities, filling stations, control towers and other buildings, as well as large swathes of grassed areas. The area in question is large and it is proposed to be built on the farm Nassau alongside the R302 south of Malmesbury on the way to Klipheuwel, approximately 7kms from Malmesbury, 4km from Abbotsdale, 6km from Tierfontein and Kalbaskraal and 5km from the Paardeberg mountain range.
THIS DEVELOPMENT IS OF VERY GREAT CONCERN
There are direct implications of the proposed aircraft estate not only for neighbours of the proposed estate, such as nearby farms, the Paardeberg mountains, but also for all of those in Malmesbury, Abbotsdale, Tierfonteinon, Chatsworth, Kalbaskraal and Riverlands. It also affects areas further into the region which are within easy distance of a flying jaunt, like Riebeeksrivier, the Riebeek Valley and Wellington. The developers are talking about 120 movements ( 120 airplanes, gyrocopters, helicopters and microlites) perhaps more per day, especially over weekends. This would mean that there would be a plane up in the air every 5 minutes, every Saturday and every Sunday from sunrise to sunset. On days when they would host a special event, this number could be higher, the developers said at the Malmesbury Library public meeting (Sep. 4th - 2008) and again at the Westbank Hall public meeting in 2009. These numbers are also confirmed by the Scoping Report prepared by CLES.
Permission was granted by the DEADP for the EIA phase to begin in March 2011.
The Department accepted the Final Scoping Report as well as the Plan of Study for the full EIA. Cles has 6 months from the date of issue of the letter (21st February 2011) to respond or apply for an extension
However, the DEADP put forward several querries and a lot of guidelines that in the end raises more questions than answers - most of which should have been answered by this stage.
The Department seem to indicate that they are unhappy that the development is taking place outside the urban edge, and that it is not appropriate.
They indicate that the desirability of such is not properly made in the FSR, particularly the residential component. In fact in the section on Needs and Desirability, the Dept. states that there does not appear to be any justification for a development of this nature, so much so that the Department asks for an independent specialist to perform certain studies, independant of CLES
The Department also found the following reports wanting :
The Noise study, The Water and Waste management studies. The department also poses several socio-economic and ecological as well a sustainability questions that are going to require serious effort on the part of the developers.
The DEADP's response is available by clicking the link on the right
