Council fights closure

By KATH GANNAWAY
YARRA Ranges Mayor Graham Warren has vowed Yarra Ranges Council will do whatever it can to turn around Swinburne University’s decision to close the Lilydale Campus.
Mr Warren said he was meeting with Vice-Chancellor Linda Kristjanson later this week.
“All the council is dismayed and outraged at the decision and we will be looking to do whatever we can to change it, or to keep it going in some other way as an education facility for this region,” he said on Sunday.
Cr Warren said council was not notified until half-an-hour before the announcement was made.
His dismay was shared by Cr Len Cox and industry leaders Alister Osborn, president of Lilydale Chamber of Commerce and Mark Challis, CEO of Yarra Ranges Regional Marketing.
Liberal MP for Evelyn Christine Fyffe and Labor MP for Monbulk James Merlino also registered their disgust at the decision – but put the blame in different quarters.
“As a council we need to think about what’s possible on that site. If you look at it in terms of the local economy, and for the benefit of our region in so many ways you would look at keeping it open as a school,” Cr Warren said.
Cr Cox was part of the original committee set up to work out where Swinburne would build.
“It’s an extraordinary decision,” he said. “It was built specifically for this region and there is a lot of infrastructure there.
“One of the reasons for its existence was equal access to tertiary education for Yarra Ranges. It’s a very poorly thought out decision made without any great concern for either staff or students.”
Cr Cox said the council had been talking with Swinburne recently about the possibility of using some of their meeting rooms while the council building redevelopment was being done, and about building the regional swimming complex on the site.
“We were as surprised as everyone else on Friday,” he said.
Yarra Valley councillor Jeanette McRae, a former Swinburne student, said the closure would have an extraordinary impact on the region in terms of access to both TAFE and higher education, as well as untold flow-on ramifications.
“What does it mean for the students living there, and in terms of developing Lilydale as a university town. What does mean for the future location of the Lilydale aquatic proposal which the shire was looking at putting up there?
“This will have huge impacts,” she said.
Mr Osborn said the chamber had been working closely with Swinburne but also had no idea.
“I think the community needs to come together and see what can be done – put pressure on the government to use that campus as a training facility and maybe find another provider,” he said.
He said whatever was done needed to be done quickly.
“Businesses need people with skills. If it comes to the middle of next year, they lock the doors and you lose all the expertise and you can never recover that situation,” he said.
Mr Challis also voiced concern about the loss of expertise and of the opportunity to train skilled workers for the tourism and hospitality sector of the Yarra Ranges.
“One of the greatest problems facing the industry is a lack of skilled workers so for the government to be cutting funds to the institution that provides that first and often second and third level of training is a major concern.
“This seems to me to fly in the face of the needs of the industry,” he said.
Monbulk MP James Merlino described the decision as ‘shameful’, saying it was devastating news for the outer east and would impact 1000 students.
He sheeted the blame directly to the government cuts.
“This is a direct result of the unprecedented $290m cut to TAFE by the Baillieu Govt. Swinburne Prahran campus is also under threat,” he said on facebook immediately after the announcement.
State Liberal MP for Evelyn Christine Fyffe however called on Swinburne to ensure higher education facilities were offered at the Croydon and Wantirna campuses saying only that she was “angry and bitterly disappointed at Swinburne’s decision.”