The city’s planning and development committee will also be asked to ignore putting the replica DC-2 plane on any regional protection list.

A heritage assessment of the moth-balled Uiver by Noel Bell Radley Smith + Partners will be tabled tonight, just three working days after it was received by the Albury Council.

The assessment says the replica has “indirect associations” with Albury and “prior to 1980, the memory of the Uiver story was kept alive for 46 years without any aircraft”.

But the consultants still recommend the plane be nominated for the NSW heritage register.

Uiver advocate Jeff Sawyer yesterday said it seemed everyone bar Albury Council believe the plane should be heritage listed.

“The national trust thinks so, we understand NSW heritage think so and now the consultants suggest it should be nominated,” he said.

“And yet after all that, the council says it’s premature to seek a listing.

“Who is the council listening to?”

The consultants report said the Uiver should be listed as a movable heritage item of state heritage significance.

It said the council should nominate the plane to be placed on the state heritage register.

“State listing will protect the item at local level,” it said.

“Once listed, any future works would require approvals from the NSW Heritage Council.

“Given the aircraft is movable heritage, exemptions should be sought for its occasional movement.”

Cr Ross Jackson, who is on the committee hearing the report tonight, said he still believed the replica of the plane forced to land in Albury as part of an international air race almost 80 years ago had a viable future.

“For many of the new councillors we are playing catch-up here, trying to work out the legacy of the previous council’s Uiver decisions,” he said.