Seven prisons to close as MoJ announce plans to build biggest facility

The oldest jail in the UK is among seven detention centres due to be closed, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed, as plans for a new ‘super-prison’ were announced.

HMP Shepton Mallet in Somerset, also known as Cornhill and a working prison since 1625, is one of six to be closed in a move the Ministry says will save £63 million. Other prisons to be closed include Bullwood Hall in Essex, Canterbury, Gloucester, Kingston in Portsmouth, and Shrewsbury, and Camp Hill on the Isle of Wight, with over 1,100 staff working at all seven institutions facing re-deployment or voluntary redundancy.

The Government plans to off-set the loss of existing facilities by building a new ‘super-prison’ to be built in either London, North West England or North Wales, which will have the capacity to hold over 2,000 inmates. Four new houseblocks will also be built at HMPs Parc in South Wales, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, The Mount in Hertfordshire and Thameside in London, providing more than 1,000 new spaces.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said the plans to close “older and more expensive” facilities were part of a modernisation process which would allow the Government to maintain capacity while managing costs.

He said: “We have to bring down the cost of our prison system, much of which is old and expensive. But I never want the Courts to be in a position where they cannot send a criminal to prison because there is no place available.”

Sadiq Khan, the Labour Shadow Justice Minister, said the public would need reassurance that the number of prison places would not drop and efforts towards rehabilitating prisoners were continued.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said closing prisons and reducing prison numbers “offers major social and economic gains”, but warned the Government would save more money by focusing on crime prevention and reducing reoffending rates.

“It would be a gigantic mistake if the justice secretary were to revive the discredited idea of titans and pour taxpayers` money down the prison building drain, when the coalition government could invest in crime prevention, healthcare and community solutions to crime,” she said.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, heavily criticised the announcement.

“For a government who claims its top priority is to get the public finances in order, the decision to spend hundreds of millions on a titanic prison is bizarre,” she said.

“Time and again, our prisons have proven a colossal waste of public money, with 58 per cent of those on short-term sentences going on to commit more crime within 12 months of release.

“The truth is that the government knows that there are far too many people in prison who shouldn’t be there, with the prison population having doubled since 1990. In particular, far more people who have committed non-violent crimes have been put on pointless sentences of six months or less. These people should receive community sentences, which are approximately ten times cheaper and are far more successful in turning people away from crime.

“But two years ahead of a general election campaign, the Justice Secretary is giving his desire to ‘sound tough’ a higher priority than giving taxpayers value for money or protecting public safety.”

Joe Simpson, of the Prison Officers Association, said: “We condemn the move. The government is willing to overcrowd public sector prisons in order to save money.”