Acting Sports Minister Geoff Lee pledged on Tuesday to act immediately to rectify WEC roof and has promised to make the WEC a priority.

This has come after two days of intense scrutiny and pressure after the NBL was force to cancel a nationally-televised game on Sunday due to a leaky roof.

A lot of that pressure and scrutiny has come from this masthead, but also the Wollongong City Council which has taken a strong and united stance in relation to the matter.

Minister Lee we thank you for your attention and look forward to you working with this community in making the WEC the regional icon it should be.

The WEC services not just Wollongong, but the entire Illawarra and beyond.

READ MORE: Councillors say we should rename the WEC the 'wreck'

Lord Mayor Cr Gordon Bradbery was right in his response to the Minister on Tuesday.

"I said we were quite happy to look at all the options for that precinct long term, but I also asked what we are going to do in the short term in terms of meeting the immediate needs of the community and the basic amenities," Cr Bradbery said.

"The minister didn't commit to anything except for making sure the roof is safe... I am hopefully going to have conversations to press these things further but at this stage I don't have anything to report in terms a concrete commitment. There's still no money."

Prior to Tuesday, the response from Venues NSW was they'd spent $1.86 million on upgrading the venue in almost four years.

The Mercury understands a very large portion of that money was on the television cube which now adorns the arena ..... which other arenas also have.

We'd qualify most of what that money has been spent on as "upkeep" more so than "upgrade".

Fixing the roof is great Minister.

But let's put some of the other priorities on the "to do" list for the venue urgently as well.

Let's get cracking now on what should have been done previously.

_ Editorial for the February 5 edition of the Illawarra Mercury

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