Could another prison be built near Chorley?

An announcement will be made before Christmas about whether a third prison is to be built in a Chorley village.

The inspector who chaired a public inquiry into the plans earlier this year has sent a report to the government containing a recommendation about whether the 1,715-inmate jail, in Ulnes Walton, should be given the green light.

The final decision rests with the Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary, Angela Rayner, and will be issued on or before 16th December, according to the Planning Inspectorate.

By that point, it will have been three years since Chorley Council refused permission for the category C prison, which the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) wants to build alongside the existing Garth and Wymott lock-ups. However, the authority’s decision was challenged in an appeal by the MoJ, sparking an initial public inquiry held in the summer of 2022.

At its conclusion, planning inspector Tom Gilbert-Wooldridge recommended that the council’s rejection of the proposal should be upheld.   But the then Communities Secretary, Michael Gove, had already taken the unusual step of ‘recovering’ the appeal – meaning his department would ultimately decide whether to approve the application, having considered Mr. Gilbert-Wooldridge’s assessment.

Mr. Gove announced in January last year that he was “minded to” go against the inspector’s recommendation and grant permission for the prison – but only if he could be assured that road safety issues raised at the original inquiry could be “satisfactorily addressed”.

That move saw the inquiry reconvened across several days in March and April this year to allow Mr. Gilbert-Wooldridge to hear revised proposals about how the impact of the development on the highway network could be mitigated.

Experts appearing on behalf of the local authority and the MoJ focussed on whether local roads could cope with the increase in construction traffic during the construction of the prison.   The inquiry heard that there would, at times, be as many as 200 HGV vehicle movements per day along the narrow Ulnes Walton Lane.

In the run-up to the general election, Labour pledged to fulfil the Conservative government’s plan to deliver 20,000 new prison places – of which 6,000 had been generated on the Tories’ watch.

Shortly after he took power, Sir Keir Starmer condemned what he said was a “total failure” on behalf of the previous administration in allowing the prison estate nationwide to come within a fortnight of running out of room.   The new government opted to expand an existing early release scheme for some inmates in order to free up space.

In determining the appeal, Angela Rayner will, like her predecessor, have to take into account Mr. Gilbert-Wooldridger’s recommendation.  His report will not be made public until the government announces its decision.