By ANNA USHER

North Sydney Council will vote on Monday night to close a public Cremorne street and sell it to private school SCEGGS Redlands, four years after knocking back the very same deal.

The street is Monford Place, a small cul-de-sac off Military Road. It measures 791.4 square metres and has been a public road since about 1940. The school owns the blocks around it, and property records list SCEGGS Redlands as the registered owner of most of the units on the street, a buy-up running from 1986 to 2019

A council committee has backed the sale behind closed doors, voting 8-0 on 20 July to recommend it. The full council decides on Monday whether to make it final.

Refused in 2022, revived in 2024

Redlands first approached Council about a potential sale in February 2021, and in a May 2021 letter, then principal Stephen Webber asked Council to close Monford Place so the school could “acquire at market value” and expand its senior campus.

Council investigated, then in June 2022 resolved not to proceed with the sale.

In March 2024, the school again approached Council and by November, negotiations were reopened.

18 public parking spaces on the line

Losing the street means losing its 18 public parking spaces, 10 of them unrestricted.

How Council describes those spaces has shifted. When a sale was first investigated in 2021, Council’s traffic manager called the car spots “well used by the community”, at 88 per cent occupancy. In a 2024 report, Council said a review found the spaces were “mainly used by SCEGGS Redlands staff and students or visitors and people doing business with the school”.

Either way, Council concedes the loss will push parking demand into surrounding streets, naming Winnie Street, Parraween Street, Murdoch Street, Hampden Avenue and Waters Road.

A secret price, for the roads budget

The sale price stays secret, locked in a confidential June 2024 valuation.

Under the Roads Act, that money cannot prop up Council’s general budget. It can only be spent buying or repairing public roads. Council’s own books say it needs $20.1 million to bring its sealed roads up to standard, and its report frames the sale as a way to “reduce the burden on ratepayers”.

If the sale is approved, the formal road-closure process still follows, including a public submission period of at least 28 days. North Sydney Council meets at 7pm on Monday 10 August at 200 Miller Street. The meeting is open to the public and live-streamed.