In this history of Lake Illawarra, this has been a truly significant week.

At Wollongong City Council on Monday night, and at Shellharbour Council on Tuesday night, both organisations reiterated our commitment to protect the lake.

Together, Wollongong and Shellharbour councils are faced with a wicked problem at Lake Illawarra.

Since the lake was permanently opened by the now disbanded Lake Illawarra Authority in 2007, we’ve seen significant negative impacts when it comes to erosion.

The behaviour of the water has changed, and the strong tidal currents are particularly impacting the Windang side and the channel islands resulting in a rapid escalation of erosion. Many of us will remember the dramatic photographs of Windang’s foreshore playground after the April 6 2024 natural disaster where it teetered on the bank with some of the soft fall dangling into the water.

While there had been erosion to the foreshore area before this date, the huge amount of rain and the speed of the water movement gauged a path under the playground and made it necessary to quickly remove it for safety reasons.

It’s clear a ‘do nothing’ option won’t work for Lake Illawarra and there is no easy or quick fix for this problem. Both preferred options in the Lake Illawarra Entrance Options Study come at considerable cost.

Read more about the Options in our Media Release: Councils call for support to pursue lake entrance management options

There is no doubt that Shellharbour and Wollongong councils need the NSW Government’s financial support to fund any future works.  This is why, at this week’s meeting, we resolved to ask the NSW Government to undertake a Strategic Business Case to identify how we financially progress any options.

We know there is keen community interest in the Lake and I’d like to thank the more than 500 community members who responded to the community engagement phase related to the study options.

Many of us who grew up in the area have memories of the Lake. For me it was prawning with my father and grandfather, walking in off the Kings Street end, then racing home to nanna’s kitchen to boil up our catch.

The community have made it very clear that they wanted a measured approach that would protect the many things we all love about the lake – fishing, boating, recreation, with good water quality, and making sure we don’t go back to the stench of years gone by.

However, without financial support from other levels of Government, any progress will be extremely limited and a long way into the future.