Councillors set for decision on 'Shadbolt Airport Terminal' naming
A report that will be put to Invercargill City Councillors recommends that the Invercargill Airport terminal be renamed the Sir Tim Shadbolt Airport Terminal.
A recommendation to rename the Invercargill Airport terminal in honour of long-serving mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt will be put to councillors on Tuesday.
Before the October election most mayoral candidates suggested if Shadbolt wasn't to be re-elected they would be keen to sort a civic tribute to acknowledge Shadbolt's service as a long-time mayor.
Although it has since developed into a relatively drawn-out saga.
Many ideas has been thrown about around a potential way to honour Shadbolt but nothing has been able to be agreed on.
Current Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark suggested naming the Gala St Reserve after him but that was knocked back by Shadbolt and his long-time partner Asha Dutt. They instead suggested a statue, although Clark and others were not that keen.
A group of North Island-based Shadbolt supporters - including former Hamilton Mayor Margeret Evans - suggested the Invercargill Airport renaming which Clark has now publicly backed.
Invercargill City Holdings Limited general manager Andrew Cameron has put together a report that councillors will discuss on Tuesday.
The council has had discussions with the Invercargill Airport Limited board regarding the possibility of recognising Shadbolt in some way at the airport.
The discussions considered three options:
Renaming the Invercargill Airport as Sir Tim Shadbolt Airport.
Renaming the terminal as Sir Tim Shadbolt Terminal
Or renaming the Airport Avenue as Sir Tim Shadbolt Avenue
The report recommends that the airport terminal be renamed the Sir Tim Shadbolt Terminal and concept images have been produced.
Council, through Invercargill City Holdings Limited, holds 97.47% of the shares in the Invercargill Airport.
The balance of the shares are held by Hokonui Research and Development Ltd (0.63%), Ōraka-Aparima Rūnaka Incorporated Society, (0.63%), Te Rūnaka o Awarua Charitable Trust (0.63%), and Waihōpai Rūnaka Holdings Ltd (0.63%).
The report says the chairs of those remaining shareholders were approached for their comments on the Shadbolt proposal.
Council has received confirmation from two that they approve the recognition for Shadbolt.
Shadbolt has also been approached and is supportive of the concept.
“The concept discussed with Sir Tim broadly included naming on the exterior of the building, an internal ‘Welcome to Sir Tim Shadbolt Airport Terminal’, a location in the waiting area of the Sir Tim ‘painting with mask’, that is currently in the Civic Theatre; and a plaque outlining his service to the city,” Cameron wrote in his report.
Councillors will ultimately decide whether to back the terminal naming recommendation, they could elect to take no further action regarding the recognition of Shadbolt at the airport, or they could take some other action to recognise Shadbolt.
The Tribune understands the renaming of the airport terminal is unlikely to get unanimous support around the table with at least one councillor not all that comfortable with the concept.
Shadbolt has already been acknowledged in the city through the naming of the Sir Tim Shadbolt stand at ILT Stadium Southland.
Although many feel the airport honour would be a good fit, given he was a director on the Invercargill Airport Limited board and during his tenure as mayor the Invercargill Airport board undertook a significant runway extension in 2003.
It is currently the third longest civilian runway in New Zealand, and the new terminal development was completed in 2016.
In 2018 Air New Zealand commenced a jet service from Invercargill to Auckland, its longest domestic flight, reflecting the importance of IAL as a gateway to Southland.
I am surprised that there is a push to get the ex-mayors name associated with the airport. Much of the detail in the above report is missing, especially the detail around cost. Invercargill's runway was lengthened under the theory that if a runway is built international flights will come. A real cart before the horse scenario and despite many promises international flights never arrived.
After the realization slowly sunk that no international flights were going to arrive, they changed the story to, well at least we now have a runway big enough to accommodate jets. At that sage we only had propellor planes doing scheduled flights with the odd diversion of jets when Queenstown was closed. But in amongst this they conveniently overlooked the fact AirNZ had been flying 737 jets into Invercargill since the 1970,s.
We also at one stage had a livestock company flying a 727 transport plane from Australia and landing with no difficulty but had to fly via Christchurch to fully refuel before flying back across the Tasman.
So while we can be proud of having this amazing long runway the reality is that it has come at a huge cost and achieves very little apart from giving the contractors more money whenever it needs resealed.
Queenstown airport operates very satisfactory with a runway about 500 metres shorter Invercargill.