What's planned, and how the decision was made
Graylands Hospital has operated on Brockway Road, Mount Claremont since 1909. Here's what's changing, and the five-year process behind it.
Two different patient populations
Graylands has historically held two distinct groups. General psychiatric patients are people with serious mental illness admitted for treatment, most of them voluntarily, under the Mental Health Act 2014. Forensic mental health patients are a separate legal category: people charged with serious offences — including homicide, serious sexual offences, and armed robbery — whom a court has found unfit to stand trial or not criminally responsible due to mental illness Community review §1.1. They are held under the Criminal Law (Mental Impairment) Act 2023, not a health admission.
The Frankland Centre has operated at Graylands since 1993 as WA's maximum-security forensic unit. Total current forensic capacity across the Frankland Centre (30 beds) and the adjacent Dryandra Ward (15 beds) is 45 beds Community review §1.1. The proposed expansion converts Graylands from a general hospital with a contained forensic wing into a campus built primarily around the forensic population — with the general psychiatric function substantially closed or relocated.
Graylands is the only facility of this kind in WA sited in a residential suburb. The state's maximum-security prisons, Casuarina and Hakea, sit in an industrial and correctional precinct in Canning Vale, well separated from homes and schools Community review §1.1.
Stage 1: funded and in design
Stage 1, funded in the April 2023 State Budget at $218.9 million (including $15 million from the Commonwealth), delivers on the northern campus:
- 32 new sub-acute male forensic mental health beds
- An 8-bed child and adolescent forensic mental health unit — the first of its kind in WA
- An Integrated Patient Services and Rehabilitation Centre, plus partial perimeter and civil works
Added to the existing 45 beds, this brings the northern campus to approximately 85 forensic beds after Stage 1 Infrastructure WA, Mar 2023.
Sub-acute doesn't mean low-impact. The 32 new beds carry a lower security classification than the Frankland Centre. Patients at this level participate in structured community access programs — escorted or semi-supervised outings beyond the campus perimeter — as part of their treatment pathway. The boundaries and protocols for these programs have not been publicly disclosed Community review §1.2.
The full plan: 136 beds, $698.3 million
Government communications focus on Stage 1. Infrastructure WA's own assessment confirms the long-term plan is substantially larger:
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Forensic beds, northern campus | 136 (≈3× current forensic capacity) |
| Secure mental health recovery beds | 40 additional |
| General psychiatric beds closing | 118 (51 acute + 67 HDU) |
| Estimated total capital cost | $698.3 million |
Source: Infrastructure WA Major Infrastructure Proposal Assessment, March 2023 Infrastructure WA, Mar 2023
Only Stage 1 ($218.9M) is funded. The remaining beds — Stage 2 — have not been separately funded.
The school on the boundary
John XXIII College sits on the immediate boundary of the site, approximately 270 metres from the northern construction zone, and holds roughly 1,500 students from Pre-Kindergarten to Year 12. The College's own published history notes it was built deliberately without a perimeter fence Community review §1.4. The school occupied this open site from 1986 — seven years before the Frankland Centre existed. Every escalation since has occurred after the school was already there.
Three further schools sit within the immediate catchment: Mount Claremont Primary (≈550–750m, ≈300 students), Moerlina School, and Quintilian School. Approximately 2,000 students attend schools within one kilometre of the campus Community review §1.4.
How the decision was made
The Graylands Reconfiguration and Forensic Taskforce (GRAFT) ran from January 2021 to July 2023, chaired by Hon. Jim McGinty AM (former Minister for Health and Attorney-General), with six senior public servants and one independent member — no Department of Justice, community, or local government representation is confirmed in its membership Community review, Annex A.
Three events occurred within four to six weeks of each other in March–April 2023, and no public record explains how they were sequenced or coordinated:
No agency has been named as accountable for the project as a whole, or as a single point of contact for resident and school concerns once construction and operations begin Community review §2.2.
Full governance timeline
Full annex with every date and source: see the Community Research Paper, Annex A.