Wagga Wagga City Council says it is hopeful of securing a long-term lease of the local airport following positive talks with the Royal Australian Air Force. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
After years of working with the Defence Force, Wagga Wagga City Council (WWCC) has said it is hopeful of securing a long-term lease of Wagga Wagga Airport.
WWCC has been seeking a 50 plus 49-year lease of the airport for several years, but concerns grew that its 30-year occupation of the airport would come to an end in June.
The Royal Australian Air Force, the current owners of the airport, expressed interest in potentially looking for a private owner to lease it in place of WWCC. Since early 2024, WWCC has been advocating to extend the lease.
In November 2024, the RAAF and WWCC agreed to a 12-month extension of the lease – set to end in June this year – until 2026.
Since the announcement of that decision, WWCC and the RAAF have been debating the best interests of the regional airport.
Following an update of the ongoing talks with the RAAF, WWCC Executive Manager of Regional Activation Projects Christine Priest said the council was expecting a result of the lease by September after it submitted a formal proposal in June.
“We have been in negotiations with the Defence for over 12 months now,” she said.
“We submitted a proposal to the Defence approximately a month ago, and we have been in some further communications, and we’re expecting an outcome to be received around September.
“Council’s definitely been working in collaboration with Defence and in a positive manner, we’ve had a number of meetings with them and gone through what we were putting forward in the proposal to ensure that we’re covering everything that they wanted and everything that we needed so there’d be no surprises once we submitted the proposal.
“Council is hopeful of a positive outcome.”
WWCC has stated that, should it be successful in securing the lease come September, it will move forward in applying for funding for a master plan for the airport.
“Council has very much been looking for a long-term lease for the Wagga airport because that’ll enable us to make further investment into the airport,” she said.
“It’ll also put us in a good position to apply for grant funding, not only federal, but state grant funding as well, and we require that long-term tenure to be in a position to be successful to achieve that.
“We’re looking at a long-term master plan for the airport, for the entire airport precinct site, and then we’ll be looking at completing more detailed designs for the airport terminal upgrade, which we have previously looked at as part of the business case.
“We acknowledge, like everyone in the community, that we are definitely overdue for upgrades to the airport, and those things will be covered as part of this long-term planning and hopefully securing some further funds.”
