New Prisons Update

 

The government’s stock response to the recent flurry of interest in the state of prisons is that they are in the midst of building 20,000 modern new places which will ease population pressures and raise standards.

Parliament’s Justice Committee will be providing welcome scrutiny to their plans in a new inquiry, which will be asking if the commitment to deliver the new places by the mid-2020s is achievable and sufficient to manage projected demand.

There is certainly progress with HMPs Five Wells and Fosse way up and running and HMP Millsike being built. But the Guardian reports today that the 20,000 new places will not be available until 2030.

Decisions about three proposed new builds are still in the balance.  Earlier this month, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove was due to decide on appeals by the Ministry of Justice against planning refusals in Leicestershire and Buckinghamshire. Inspectors have reportedly given Gove the evidence from their hearings about the proposed new 1,715 place category B prison at Gartree and the 1,468 place category C prison near Grendon. But more time is needed to reach a decision in each case. They are now promised by 8 November.

As for the 1,715 place Category C prison on land next to Garth and Wymott prisons in Lancashire, an inquiry was due to resume on 19 September to consider whether hazards and risks within the local road network had been acceptably addressed. But the planning inspector who oversaw the earlier stages of the inquiry became unavailable for personal reasons, so the timescale has slipped.   

The back up possibility of using the old RAF site at Wethersfield in Essex looks unlikely. The Home Office have got in there first, with 94 asylum seekers held there at the end of August with plans for 1,700.   Braintree District Council in Essex are due to challenge the plans in the High Court on 31 October.

The Justice Committee will be looking not only at proposed new builds but planned expansion in existing prisons, the introduction of Rapid Deployment Cells and the use of Police cells under Operation Safeguard.  

Importantly too they will look at the resources required to manage prisons safely and effectively and the impact of an ageing infrastructure particularly in Victorian prisons.  It’s an important and overdue piece of work.