City of Canning councillor Jesse Jacobs said a city-paid trip to Sydney to investigate how to deal with future developments at Perth Airport was worth the effort.
Mr Jacobs visited Sydney as part of the Australian Mayoral Aviation Council 2017 Annual Conference and Planners Workshop as a representative of the City of Canning.
The conference allowed visitors the chance to tour Sydney’s international and domestic airports and their runways.
Visitors listened about and discussed ways airport operations had been structured so as to not interfere with residents in surrounding suburbs or living under flight paths.
Mr Jacobs said he had become concerned about plans by Perth Airport to construct a new runway parallel with its north south facing one.
Mr Jacobs said the airport’s plan was to demolish the east-west one, effectively narrowing down plane take-off to two directions.
At the top of his concern was potentially increased noise pollution over suburbs like Beckenham, East Cannington and Cannington.
“I have residents already complaining to me about noise. I’d hate for them to not know what’s coming,” he said.
“Perth is going to be a big city in the future; in the next 20-30 years we’ll have very strong population growth.
“It’s an exciting time but we need to get it right.”
Mr Jacobs said theories that planes would get quieter over time were not necessarily correct and that noise reduction had begun to slow in recent decades.
He said other states had implemented late-night flight curfews to reduce noise pollution but that he did not think that had to be the way to go.
The Perth Airport Master Plan 2014 included plans for a new terminal, multi-storey car park and office spaces and was expected to take 20 years to complete.
The new runway received approval in 2015 and was expected to be completed by 2019.
Other upgrades include multi-storey car parks and office space, and upgrades to airport roads.
Mr Jacobs said he hoped a solution could be worked out that allowed airplane noise to be spread across a greater area.
Perth Airport was contacted for comment but did not respond before deadline.
