Additional cell blocks are to be built at HMPs Guys Marsh (Dorset), Rye Hill (Warwickshire) and Stocken (Rutland). High Down (Surrey) will get a new workshop.
Planning permission is being sought for works to begin, with completion anticipated by winter 2022 at Rye Hill jail, and throughout 2023 at the remaining sites.
Prisons minister Lucy Frazer said: “This significant step in our plan to transform the prison estate shows the government’s intention to invest in infrastructure, create jobs and to build back better for this country. The new houseblocks will provide modern environments where we can effectively rehabilitate offenders and steer them away from crime.”
The project will see capacity increase by 180 places at HMP Guys Marsh, 462 at HMP Rye Hill and 206 at HMP Stocken, where a further new houseblock opened in June 2019. HMP High Down’s new workshop will free up space for 90 extra places in the existing prison building.
Back in June, the Ministry of Justice announced plans for four new prisons to be built across England over the next six years. A new jail will be constructed at HMP Full Sutton, in East Yorkshire, and work is under way to identify sites in the northwest of England and the southeast.
In addition to the four new prisons, construction is advanced on HMP Five Wells, the new jail at Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, and early works have started at Glen Parva, Leicestershire, to create two new 1,680-place category C resettlement prisons.
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