Plans for 420 more prisoners to be housed at Ford Prison

Plans for seven new houseblocks, property storage for prison officers, a healthcare unit, offender management unit, multi-faith unit, a dry goods kitchen storage and an 80 space car park have been submitted by the MOJ to Arun District Council for approval.

The plans, submitted by real estate services firm Cushman and Wakefiled on behalf of the MOJ, said new houseblocks would be replacing existing ones, creating 420 additional bed spaces.

The expansion is part of a £5.2 billion UK prison building programme from the MOJ and HM’s Prison and Probation Service announced in 2022, aiming to create 20,000 more prison places by the mid 2020s.

HMP Ford is part of the second and final phase for the planned 1,320 extra Category D prison spaces, being the largest of the planned Category D expansions.

Other prisons seeing expansions in phase two include four houseblocks at HMP Stanford Hill for 240 spaces and two houseblocks at HMP Leyhill for 120 spaces.

The plans state that in October 2023 more than 88,000 people were imprisoned in the UK, with a maximum capacity of 88,980, with reports this week suggesting less than 100 spaces were left in the male prison estate.

In October, this meant 99 per cent of the UK’s prison capacity was being used, with 60 per cent of prisons being overcrowded.

The MOJ said this was being ‘primarily’ driven by government reform to the criminal justice system, increased sentence lengths, prisoners on extended remand and recalls to prison, and court’s recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and industrial action.

HMP Ford had plans approved in 2022 to increase its capacity by 120 spaces, amidst a forecast by the MOJ of ‘unprecedented’ prisoner numbers in the UK over the next decade.

The new healthcare unit and houseblocks would be three storeys tall whilst the other new buildings will all be one storey.

Plans state the development would aim to be ‘as close to net zero as possible’, with contractors aiming to divert 95 per cent of waste during construction away from landfill.

The plans also say the extension would see a 10 per cent biodiversity net gain to the site, and would see an additional 25 staff employed during construction.