{"id":584258,"date":"2026-08-29T19:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T19:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/584258\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T19:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T19:22:16","slug":"whangarei-airport-noise-complaints-remain-steady-despite-30-drop-in-incidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/584258\/","title":{"rendered":"Whang\u0101rei airport noise complaints remain steady despite 30% drop in incidents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Airport neighbour Neil Pemberton asked committee members to imagine being jolted awake at 2am by aircraft noise, house vibrations and bright landing lights shining into bedroom windows.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may eventually get back to sleep, only to be jolted awake again by the flight returning that same night.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some people, getting back to sleep can take hours. For others, that first disturbance is the end of their sleep for the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pemberton, who has lived near the airport for more than 60 years, said 156 homes were affected by aircraft noise<\/a> of up to 90 decibels.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Onerahi residents don\u2019t experience aircraft noise according to its regulatory classification. We experience the cumulative noise from all night-time aircraft operations at this airport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pemberton said being exempt from a noise rule<\/a> did not make the noise disappear or remove the consequences of repeatedly being woken overnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have doctors making critical, sometimes life-or-death decisions, bus drivers carrying passengers, teachers responsible for children, people operating heavy machinery and children who need sleep to learn and thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest report showed little change in complaints since the inaugural report, covering the six months to January 31, was presented to the committee in February.<\/p>\n

That first report recorded 119 complaints relating to 202 individual noise events. It found 65.5% of complaints were about night-time helicopter operations disturbing residents\u2019 sleep.<\/p>\n

In the new report, incidents linked to night-time activity remained virtually unchanged at 63.4% and complaints rose by only three.<\/p>\n

However, reported noise incidents fell almost 30%, from 202 in the inaugural report to 142 in the latest reporting period.<\/p>\n

The complaints in the latest report came from 17 identified individuals, although one resident lodged 48 during the six-month period. A further 18 complaint records were submitted anonymously.<\/p>\n

Concerns included sleep disruption, aircraft noise, health and wellbeing effects, and runway use.<\/p>\n

Council staff reported helicopter operations associated with Northland Rescue Helicopter Limited generated more than 1000 aircraft movements during the reporting period, including 121 night-time movements.<\/p>\n

Staff said every complaint linked to a specific flight was reviewed by airport operations staff against Northland Rescue Helicopter\u2019s fly neighbourly programme, operational procedures and District Plan requirements, with no breaches identified.<\/p>\n

\"OnerahiOnerahi resident Neil Pemberton (foreground) and other Whang\u0101rei airport neighbours at Wednesday’s airport noise committee meeting. Photo \/ Susan Botting<\/p>\n

The report pointed to early signs that operational changes introduced in June may be helping reduce noise impacts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before revised procedures were introduced on June 2, the council received an average of 22.3 complaint records a month. Since then, that figure has dropped to 16.5 complaints a month, a reduction of about 26%.<\/p>\n

Reported noise incidents also fell from an average of 26.8 to 17.5 a month, a decrease of about 35%.<\/p>\n

Staff cautioned that only two months of post-change data was available and it was too early to determine whether the procedural changes were responsible for the drop.<\/p>\n

Northland Rescue Helicopter had advised the council that the revised hover-taxi procedure was working well operationally and reduced the time helicopters spent generating noise during arrivals and departures, the latest noise report said.<\/p>\n

Community representative Gary Stables urged the committee to support greater disclosure of airport noise monitoring information.<\/p>\n

\"Onerahi'sOnerahi’s Gary Stables is a community representative on Whang\u0101rei District Council’s airport noise committee. Photo \/ Susan Botting<\/p>\n

He pushed for the release of the airport\u2019s latest \u201ccount and calculate\u201d noise monitoring report, including aircraft movements, recorded noise events, compliance calculations and details of flights excluded from official assessments.<\/p>\n

Stables said committee members and residents needed more detailed information to understand compliance with planning rules and the real-world noise experienced by communities surrounding the airport.<\/p>\n

\u25a0 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Airport neighbour Neil Pemberton asked committee members to imagine being jolted awake at 2am by aircraft noise, house…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3589,2681,682,30701,127,38402,13574,78,10116,3244,111,43,139,11550,35921,69,5423,4887,13120,81513,83116,6100,8229,1869],"class_list":["post-584258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-3589","tag-airport","tag-being","tag-complaints","tag-despite","tag-drop","tag-efforts","tag-in","tag-incidents","tag-neighbours","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nights","tag-noise","tag-nz","tag-plagued","tag-reduce","tag-remain","tag-sleepless","tag-steady","tag-still","tag-they","tag-whangrei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}