The Solicitor General and Wigston MP, Edward Garnier, has succeeded in stopping a planned 360 place new prison build, for young offenders, at Glen Parva in his own constituency. There will be those who might accuse him of being a NIMBY.
The economic downturn has meant cutbacks and savings are needed all over the place. A cheaper, equivalent number of adult prison places will instead be provided elsewhere. According to the MoJ: “This forms part of the £325m that the Ministry of Justice will contribute to the savings of £6billion for this financial year (2010-2011), as announced by the Chancellor, Gideon Osborne, earlier this week”.
Edward Garnier, has said: “We need to be more imaginative about how we treat offenders within the criminal justice system”.
This got me thinking. Nobody can accuse me of being a NIMBY. Now I know there are those who claim that our prisons are already holiday camps, so why am I supportive of the plans to turn a place in Richmond, North Yorkshire, in my own constituency, into an adult prison?
The guidebook states that Lindale Holiday Park, near Bedale, is:
It is without doubt eco-friendly. Therefore, ideal for the first ecological prison in the country. It maybe a new concept for us in the UK, however, there is a successful working model already in existence in Norway.
Obviously such a prison would be low security, and Kenneth Clarke and I have reached an understanding that only those prisoners who have successfully completed a course on Anger Management or Sex Offender Treatment Programme will be transferred to what will be called Dale’s View Prison.
