The Opposition spokesman for the Illawarra made the comment  at the launch of a new food van set to operate at the city’s arguably most spectacular vantage point.

“This is going to hopefully kick off 2016, where we want to see  Mount Keira Summit Park really become a mountain of opportunities and a mountain of possibilities for our local tourism industry,” Mr Park said. 

“We need serious investment up here and that’s why I’m … urging local government and the NSW government to work together [to] remove the bureaucratic red tape and really accelerate this to become a massive tourist opportunity.”

It’s something this masthead has already thrown is support behind in recent months and will continue to do so.

Firstly, credit to groups such as Rotary who have voluntarily helped maintain the area as best as possible.

Yet it remains a vastly underutilised asset that needs to be supercharged to help build on the tourism wave this fine region is beginning to surf.

Mr Park said the coffee van was just a start.

Hopefully he is right.

He added more work was needed to transform the area into “the destination it has the potential to be”.

That work is well underway.

The Wollongong City Council is already planning a vision for the area.

“Some clear visions have been defined, some clear opportunities have been realised, but it really is up to the community now to come forward and tell council what they really want to see happen up here,” Destination Wollongong general manager Mark Sleigh said.

Thousands of kids across the region headed back to start the 2016 school year.

Readers sent in some wonderful images of their excited kids which we’ve proudly displayed in paper and online.

Hopefully they get as much joy of seeing themselves in print or in digital as we got out of bringing them to you.

Statistics from the education department said about 5500 kindergarten students started “big school in the region” and hopefully they had a blast.