Brantford City Council is about to annex the Brantford Airport. They will acquire a large amount of farmland in the process that requires specialized care not normally provided inside the city limits. The large farm area is a significant food provider for the city and county. It has few residents as farmland does so the expense of caring for it will be transferred directly to the citizens of Brantford. It will be a very expensive undertaking to be paid for by the citizens of Brantford.
But that’s only the start. They want to expand the boundaries of the airport and extend its existing runway by a thousand feet. Brantford citizens will again be on the hook for a hugely expensive project that will likely turn out to be a huge waste of time and taxpayer money. The current runway is already long enough to land a Boeing 737 jet. If their idea is to bring in huge cargo planes, Hamilton airport currently has that market cornered and is very close to Brantford. Hamilton Airport is in the countryside away from major housing areas.
The Brantford Airport lines right up with the City of Brantford so were their plan to succeed which is unlikely, large cargo planes will be landing and taking off directly over city residences. The noise from those planes would be great and it would be happening at any time day or night. Should there be a crash it would be an absolute disaster with houses crushed and many lives lost.
Hand in hand with this annexation and spending spree is the city’s ill conceived West Arterial Road (formerly the West Brant/Oak Park Access) I have made the point in previous letters to both city and county councils and in news postings that with the rapidly changing world economy, city traffic congestion is forecast by global economic experts to be less, not greater by 2050.
If the City of Brantford and the County of Brant want to cooperate productively right now, they need to first widen Colborne Street West to Rest Acres Road and Rest Acres Road to Highway 403. This may be enough that the West Arterial Road may never be needed. Millions of dollars of taxpayer money would be saved as opposed to recklessly spent on a future that will likely never happen.
Ian Munroe
