I note that no one is predicting that the YCTM council will take me up on my offer to relieve council of the burden of operating and maintaining the aerodrome. All council needs to do is transfer the remaining original aerodrome land to me at the same price council paid for it, and I will take on responsibility for operation and maintenance.
Why wouldn’t council jump at the chance to rid itself of the burden of operating and maintaining something whose benefit is not justified by the expense? If it’s all downside for council, the business case for divestment writes itself, surely.
I’ll be paying real rates for the land, rather than council charging itself in a ‘zero sum gain’ accounting transaction. I’ll be the one spending money and I won’t be charging landing fees or parking fees. (I will, as the council does, charge a ‘throughput’ margin on the Avgas bowser. And of course I will be getting the income from the fenced off land used for agriculture, which income doesn’t appear on council’s books as income generated by the aerodrome. And of course I will be getting the proceeds of the sale of further subdivided blocks of land, which hasn’t in the past appeared on council’s books as income generated by the aerodrome. I suppose I could give ‘crying poor’ a go, but I doubt many would be sympathetic.)
Any member of the public may currently use YCTM aerodrome as an aerodrome. Same as any other public aerodrome. No requirement to be a pilot or to have any other qualification. And i’m not talking about just medical patients.
To fly for fun, you have to learn to fly. To learn to fly, you have to find a flying school. Many aerodromes that used to have a flying school no longer have one. I learned to fly at a place that had 6 flying schools. Now it has none. Anyone who says that that outcome has nothing to do with increased regulatory complexity nor aerodrome charging regimes should consider a career in a government bureaucracy. Ditto those who think modern military aerospace capability somehow no longer depends on a long and wide logistics tail requiring facilities and skills that are slowly atrophying in Australia.