About 10,000 offenders will be transferred to the new associations in an attempt to save an estimated GBP80m a year. Names of other prisons have not yet been released – but Armley Jail’s future is understood to be hanging in the balance.
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The Carter proposal was founded on the chicken and egg problem of funding accommodation to which existing occupants of Victorian jails would move while their prisons were sold off and the subsequent receipts realised.
Labour’s justice spokesman, Lord Falconer, said his party supported modernising the prison estate but said the performance of individual jails rather than the value of their real estate should be the key criteria for selecting those to be sold.
Announcing plans to open five new prisons, Chancellor George Osborne said the government would close “old, outdated prisons in city centres, and sell the sites to build thousands of much-needed new homes”.
The sites will allow more more than 3,000 new homes to be built, with Victorian prison site at Reading the first to be sold, Mr Osborne and Mr Gove said.
“This will save money, reform an outdated public service and creation opportunity by boosting construction jobs and offering more people homes to buy”.
The Chancellor and Justice Secretary made the announcement ahead of a visit to Brixton prison, a Victorian prison in South London.
The two ministers did not name any of the London prisons earmarked for closure. Instead of 900 inmates, it held 1,300 at the time.
He said: “Every Victorian prison, including Strangeways, could be in the firing line”.
Mr Crabb said: “This is an exciting time for North Wales which has a fast growing economy based on a dynamic mix of major exporters and a thriving small business sector”. “And of course even if it were to close, no one has said what it might become”.
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“We are very fortunate to live in a part of the country where unemployment is not at the same level as elsewhere”. But that doesn’t mean it will be easy for people to find alternative employment. In their place, we will build nine new prisons – all of which are modern, suitable and rehabilitative. The government will also complete the new prison being built at Wrexham, and expand existing prisons in Stocken and Rye Hill.
