Jewish school confident of move to Caulfield Hospital site

Mount Scopus Memorial College, a high-fee Jewish private school in Melbourne’s south-east, says it is confident it will strike a deal with the state government to move its Burwood campus to Caulfield Hospital, in the city’s Jewish heartland.

The school transports about 1000 students from the Caulfield area to Burwood each day, costing parents thousands of dollars each year, and has described the hospital’s use of the site as “inefficient, costly and a huge waste of valuable land”.

Mount Scopus Memorial College principal Dan Sztrajt after antisemitic graffiti was sprayed at the school in May. Credit: Wayne Taylor

But the state government and the hospital’s operator say there are no current plans for the hospital to be moved or redeveloped to accommodate Mount Scopus.

The land-swap proposal involves Mount Scopus taking over all or part of the Caulfield Hospital site in return for relinquishing its flagship Burwood campus and potentially its smaller campuses in St Kilda East and Caulfield South.

The plan is designed to put the school at the centre of Melbourne’s Jewish community and reduce security risks and travel times for students.

David Bold, president of the Mount Scopus College Foundation, said the Caulfield Hospital site and the school’s Burwood campus were “broadly equivalent”. Bold said the school was open to consolidating its three campuses onto the hospital site and including them in a land-swap deal with the government. “We’ve put everything on the table,” he said.

But strong demand for health services, Victoria’s budgetary constraints, and the complexity and significant cost of relocating the hospital pose serious challenges to the school’s ambition.

“I think there’s a lot of moving parts that would need to happen for the site to be able to move,” said Box Hill MP Paul Hamer, whose electorate includes Mount Scopus’ Burwood campus.

Caulfield Hospital is on 8.5 hectares of Crown land in Kooyong Road. It has close to 750 employees and specialises in rehabilitation, geriatric medicine, general medicine, aged mental health and community services.

The school, which has $51 million in property, plant and equipment according to its most recent annual report, has said it would “seek to have access to the site on commercial terms which will be subject to appropriate oversight”.

Mount Scopus principal Dan Sztrajt, speaking after the school’s Burwood campus was vandalised with antisemitic graffiti recently, expressed confidence the long-discussed move would proceed.

“I am confident that it will go ahead,” Sztrajt said. “The reality is there are almost no Jewish families that live out this way. It would greatly impact our security in a positive way if we were actually able to have a school within our community.”

Sztrajt said Mount Scopus spent more money on security than other Australian schools.

The school has dozens of buses transporting about 1000 students from the Caulfield area to Burwood, costing parents between $2800 and $3400 this year.

The state government gave $2 million to Jewish and Islamic schools last year to boost security amid rising antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Mount Scopus’ 71-year-old Burwood campus is across the road from where the state government plans to open an underground train station as part of the Suburban Rail Loop. Under the project, buildings between five and 20 storeys will be allowed around the new Burwood station.

Sztrajt said if Mount Scopus moved to the Caulfield Hospital site, the government could use its Burwood campus for housing or community infrastructure.

“With the Suburban Rail Loop, I know that there’s a lot of pressure on the government to find sites that can be used for all different sorts of reasons,” he said. “Things like affordable housing, these sorts of things that the government has made a priority, it just makes sense in these spaces.”

A state government spokesperson said there were “currently no plans to relocate Caulfield Hospital to another location, or to redevelop the hospital on a smaller footprint”. The government has declined to release its feasibility study on the Caulfield Hospital site redevelopment, describing it as an internal document.

Alfred Health, which operates Caulfield Hospital, said it was “totally unaware of any discussions or plans to relocate Mount Scopus to the Caulfield Hospital site”.

Caulfield Hospital in Kooyong Road, which is part of Alfred Health.Credit: Justin McManus

“Caulfield Hospital remains dedicated to providing excellent care locally as well as to the broader Victorian community.”

David Southwick, Liberal member for Caulfield, said if an “open and transparent process finds a way to accommodate both the school and a redeveloped hospital, the whole community would be delighted”.

“I know how important it is to the Mount Scopus community to have the school located where its families live. That has only been magnified by the huge security and safety challenges the Jewish community face,” he said.

“But our first priority in a health crisis is that Caulfield Hospital is fit for purpose and providing local residents with the healthcare we deserve.”

Deakin University’s Burwood campus is next to Mount Scopus and has previously been linked to the campus. Proposing a feasibility study on a redevelopment of Caulfield Hospital in 2019, federal Labor MP Mark Dreyfus said Deakin was “looking to expand their Burwood campus onto the current Mount Scopus site”. Deakin declined to comment on whether it remains interested in taking over the land.

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