Letter: Why we must save Stoke Heath
Saturday 12th February 2011, 6:01AM GMT.
Letter: I have been astonished to learn the Stoke Heath prison is to have the young offenders removed from its site due to the Youth Justice Board cancelling its contract with the jail.
This is a facility that serves Wales and the whole of the West Midlands including Merseyside.
The demise of this facility will mean the nearest youth offending facilities will be near Southport. However, the outrageous issue about this is that Government facts show the Stoke Heath facility is almost £10,000 cheaper per inmate per year than its rivals.
My calculations on the figures within the public domain mean that I as a tax-payer will have to cough up an additional £6 million a year to support the same number of young offenders at other more expensive and distant sites.
Stoke Heath is recognised by the HMIP and Ofsted as being top of the tree for the type of facilities it supplies, so why have they decided to cancel a contract, remove a facility that is central to its catchment area, is cheaper than its rivals prisons?
Or is it a matter of again another government agency not using joined-up writing and wasting the taxpayers’ money, or is it just the new Government have not circulated the memo to the Youth Justice Board that we the country are in a financial crises?
Dave Cooper
Shrewsbury
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Thats a fair point. Stoke Heath shouldn’t close. There are closer YOI’s than Southport though. HMYOI Brinsford near Wolverhampton, HMYOI Swinfen Hall in Lichfield and HMYOI Werrington near Derby.
HMP Ashwell and HMP Lancaster Castle are also set to close at the end of March this year.
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Or is it something to do with certain Developers showing an interest in buying the land and building nice ‘executive’ homes in the countryside in this locale rather than in the middle of, I dont know, say Southport ??? ….
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