People,
Has anyone read the current master plan for EN? The airport is leased for 99 years and must be operated as an airport, although development of the surrounding land for other purposes is permitted. The airport is only partly owned by Linfox (public knowledge) and they are in the transport game. Certainly they stand to make a packet from the land development, but they are also trying to attract more corporate aviation and are building new hangars to try to accommodate more jets and big twins. If you weren't serious about the airport, you'd put nothing into the infrastructure of the aviation facilities ... sort of like Bankstown I suspect.
The master plan also mentions a committment to two runways, albeit a shortened 17/35.
Linfox stands to gain nothing from closure because they don't own the land. All they would get is a lease payout fee of some sort, and I'd almost bet that figure would be less than a 99-year cash stream from sub-leasing the developed land.
Walrus