(File Photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Brendan Mayer

New taxiways

Melfort’s airport to receive government funding for two new taxiways

Apr 30, 2021 | 3:58 PM

Melfort’s airport will be getting some upgrades thanks to new funding from the Saskatchewan government.

The money will be used for the construction of two new taxiways and the excavation of a taxiway.

“The drainage is poor and there’s a lot of potholes, and it’s hard for some planes to get down there so we decided to rebuild that,” Melfort Airport Committee chairman and Melfort city councillor Doug Terry said. “It’s like rebuilding a road. We decided that was a necessary evil to do. It’s a busy airport. It will improve conditions.”

Melfort is receiving $26,350 and is one of 19 community airports in the province to receive new funding through the Community Airport Partnership (CAP) program.

“That’s the amount that we figured that we could get that done for,” Terry said. “I think we had our engineers look at that and give us a cost estimate of what it would take to rebuild that. That’s where that figure came from. We’re glad that we got the grant. Now we can proceed. I’m not sure that we could have proceeded without it. It’s important for the entire community.”

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The provincial government is contributing $1.5 million to the CAP program for 2021-22.

The rehabilitation of the apron at Miller Field was completed after Melfort received $275,000 in CAP program funding in 2020.

“They did a pretty good job on that,” Terry said. “We’re competing with other small airports in the province for the same money, but we were lucky last year. I’m pleased that we can keep making improvements to the airport.”

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Brendan.Mayer@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @BrendanMayer