By Alesha Capone
The Werribee Basketball Association president has expressed frustration that the roof of the $47 million Eagle Stadium is still leaking, more than three months after the issue was raised.
About 200 junior basketballers were told they couldn’t play on August 11, when games at the stadium were cancelled because of its faulty roof.
Several courts were shut down – or affected by leaks – for about five and a half hours.
WBA president Paul Jones said the Werribee Basketball community “remains frustrated by the ongoing issues with Eagle Stadium’s roof”.
“As a major tenant of the stadium, these roof leaks continue to have a significant impact on our competitions, clubs and, most importantly, players.
“Since our winter 2017 season, the number of participants impacted by roof leaks leading to game cancellations is a staggering 1200 plus participants.
“Since this issue was raised publicly in the Star Weekly earlier this year [May], we have been advised by the stadium’s owner, Wyndham City Council, that progress has been made on ‘rectification works’ but, as last weekend shows, it remains a serious problem when we experience poor weather,” Mr Jones said.
“We continue to call on the council to fix the roof so the kids of Wyndham can play sport – as our community is all too aware, this has been a problem with the stadium since it opened.”
Eagle stadium is owned by the Wyndham council and managed by Western Leisure Services.
Wyndham council’s acting chief executive, Stephen Thorpe, said the council was “continuing to investigate” the stadium’s roof leaks but that all the sources, or causes, of the leaks had not yet been confirmed.
“We have sought expert advice on the potential causes of the issue and possible measures to rectify it,” Mr Thorpe said.
“We have implemented a short-term measure to minimise leaking with a view to limiting further damage to the fabric of the roof and inconvenience to users of the facility.”
During June last year, the council also shut down parts of the stadium for a fortnight to fix a faulty gym floor which was damaged by regular gym use.
