Neighbours complain about 200 chopper flights a week into luxury resort

Emirates's Wolgan Valley resort hopes to increase its helicopter flights. (Supplied: Emirates Wolgan Valley) Emirates has lodged an application to increase the number of helicopter flights for its Wolgan Valley resort from 28 per week to 210. The company says it still plans to reopen later this year with luxury four-wheel drives, even if the increase is not approved. Emirates is preparing a report that will respond to submissions about the proposal. Link copiedShareShare articleA bid by a luxury resort near the Blue Mountains to increase its helicopter flights to more than 200 trips a week has been criticised as "excessive" and "unwarranted" by its neighbours. Emirates has lodged a request with the New South Wales government to boost the number of helicopter trips to its Wolgan Valley site near Lithgow from a maximum of 28 per week to 210. Increasing the flights to 30 per day would equate to a helicopter flying across the valley and nearby national parks every 22 minutes. The Emirates resort was mothballed three years ago when the sole road into the valley was shut due to instability. The company's application said the extra flights would be critical to reopening the site, despite announcing in January it would reopen with four-wheel-drive access only later this year. The Emirates resort in the Wolgan Valley has been closed for three years. (Supplied: Emirates Wolgan Valley) But now, Emirates has argued in its application that the increased flights would allow it to reopen with a minimum viable capacity of 68 guests at a time. The company said once two-wheel-drive access was restored to the valley, expected later this year, it would permanently reduce the maximum number of flights to 100 per week. Of the 130 submissions filed in response to the proposal, just one individual in Sydney supported it. The Wolgan Valley Association (WVA) said in its submission that the flights would "significantly" affect the community, its ecology and character. "The WVA is open to supporting a modest increase to flights into the resort while two-wheel-drive access remains cut off," it said. The Airbus EC120 would most frequently be used to transport guests to and from the resort. (Supplied: Emirates Wolgan Valley) Its submission said it was "immensely proud" to have Emirates as a neighbour and wanted to see it reopen, but not with a permanent increase in helicopter flights. "In the longer term, [it] may actually be counter to the commercial interests of the resort to the extent that they diminish the reputation of the Valley as a place of quiet and solitude, two defining features of wilderness," it said. The WVA wrote that the proposed flight path would also subject the valley's residents to noise levels "well beyond" what they have experienced in the past two decades. Acoustics engineer and University of New South Wales PhD candidate Ben Jancovich said the company did not model the helicopters' noise impacts on rock climbing areas or bushwalks along its flight path. He ran his own computer simulation on cliffs at established climbing areas that provided results of up to 64 decibels per fly by, which he said was "really loud". The proposed flight path includes the Wolgan Valley, the Wollemi and Gardens of Stone National Parks and the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area. (Supplied: Emirates Wolgan Valley) "That's like standing immediately next to a leaf blower," Mr Jancovich said. The company's own data estimated the highest cliff point under the flight path could experience sounds of up to nearly 80 decibels. Mr Jancovich said the modelling did not reflect how people in the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area or National Park might experience the noise. "A whole tonne of helicopters buzzing that area all day long is going to significantly detract from the user amenity for outdoor recreation people," he said. Neil Monteith from the Blue Mountains chapter of the Australian Climbing Association said the noise was not solely an annoyance for climbers but could endanger their lives. Neil Monteith says helicopter noise would endanger climbers. (Supplied: Neil Monteith) "Often, we might be 10, 20 or even 50 metres apart on a rope and you're relying on saying to someone, 'take me off belay,' or 'watch me, I'm about to do something that's scary,'" he said. "With a huge loud helicopter noise going over the top, that would obviously make that kind of communication impossible." He said the extra flights would stop people visiting the cliffs altogether. "If you're camping out there and you've got helicopters roaring across two or three times an hour, it's a totally unappealing place to be camping and climbing," he said. The flight path flies is over climbing sites in the Gardens of Stone National Park and State Conservation Area. (Supplied: Ben Sanford) The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) said in its submission that the proposal failed to consider impacts to threatened species, incl

Neighbours complain about 200 chopper flights a week into luxury resort

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