The Paraparaumu Airport Coalition is deploring lack of action over Maori land rights at Paraparaumu Airport.

The Coalition says the local Labour MP, Darren Hughes (Otaki), and the Kapiti Coast District Council have failed to come up with any sort of a deal – despite promises in October last year to do so within a year.

It says a series of meetings between the MP, the Mayor of Kapiti, Te Whanau a Te Ngarara, the group representing Maori land owners, and the airport owners have failed totally to provide any redress. A spokesman for the Airport Coalition, Alan Tristram says: “The Maori landowners were promised action by the end of October. They have been let down dreadfully by the politicians, who talk big, then fail to deliver.”

Mr Tristram says the Airport Coalition will now redouble its efforts to get justice in the Environment Court.

“We are the only community group that’s been supporting to the Maori land claims from the time an Auckland developer bought the airport -- and our Coalition has always included representatives from Te Whanau a Te Ngarara,” he says.

“But politicians have failed them. We don’t intend to.” Mr Tristram says the Coalition expects its case to be heard in the Environment Court late in February or March next year.

ENDS

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