It has come to my attention that Mr Johnston has continually been the subject of abuse and vitriolic comments from strangers and sadly long time friends and associates as well, since the news of the proposed development as a Chinese Flying School became public knowledge.

Mr Johnston is not the enemy here, and his treatment to date is without cause, and it is not the Australian way.  I have met Mr Johnston on multiple occasions, and each time I see a hardworking, friendly and extremely generous man. Who else in these hard economic times would freely donate a significant percentage of his grazing land as a community resource while personally picking up the associated bills?

If you have issues with the idea of this so called flying school, as it appears most of the valley's residents in fact do, direct your angst and outrage at those that deserve it, not Mr Johnston. As stated, he is not your enemy and does not deserve the treatment he has so far had to endure as a result. 

To those of you that have indeed been the authors of this abuse, you should hang your heads in shame and on the next occasion that you met up with him, offer him your sincere apologies, he is trying to survive in a no-win situation.

Yes CEO Norm Boyle (BDN, 22/12/17), we chose not to live next to a go-kart track and airfield for noise reasons.

But what you are proposing is not going to affect only those living close to Frogs Hollow, but the much wider Bega Valley, by sheer virtue of the size of your proposed operation. We chose to live in a far flung, quiet pocket near Bemboka, and your prospective student flight path to Cooma will dash our peaceful pocket.

If your ambitions are realised, then there will be no quiet pockets within this valley. The occasional joy flight and vital services, I think everyone accepts and appreciates, but the intensity of your industrial flight college, and whatever future it may ultimately invite, is the issue.

You are talking about changing the whole focus of the Bega Valley. All of us will be focused on your 40-odd “flying chainsaws”, reverberating around the ranges, peering into our back yards with your cameras and curious students' faces (spooking the dairy herds and horses).

You would challenge our identity as a peacefully productive food bowl and tourist destination, which is our established and greatly respected Bega brand. If we wanted to live near heavier air traffic, would've moved to Moorabbin!

Yes, it is personal...your flight school may be more welcome where intense air traffic is accepted as normal.

I have yet again been in a 5km traffic jam on the Clyde mountain to turn south at Batemans Bay. I have already made a submission to both the construction team and Andrew Constance to say that a flyover to turn south is a necessity.  Their sollution is a set of traffic lights which will be hopeless and probably make the situation worse. 

It is bad enough that they could not even organise a police presence to control the traffic heading north, which is minimal compared to the traffic heading south. I would like everyone who lives from Batemans Bay and to the south to lobby Mr Constance and maybe remind him who he represents.  If this issue was in a Sydney suburb they would be planning a billion dollar tunnel. 

We well know that the NSW government believes the most southerly point of NSW is Wollongong. It’s time to tell them we vote too. Build a flyover and dump the traffic lights.