Warrington Residents Against Prison Proposal

The announcement is just out and it’s official:

There is to be no prison in Warrington.

The list of Prisons is as follows:

• Beam Park West (East London)
• Chelmsford (Essex)
• Belmarsh
• RAF Coltishall (Norfolk)
• Maghull (Merseyside)

In addition to the five listed above, Little Hey Prison (Cambridgeshire) is set to be expanded.

You can read all about it here.

Quote from Jack Straw on 27/04/09:

“I can tell the House that we will not be pursuing a prison on the Omega site in Warrington.”

Thanks to all of you for your sterling efforts over the last 6 months.  We couldn’t have done it without you.

We’ll update the site again soon - we just wanted to pass on the good news as soon as we heard it, but in the meantime, let’s sit back and take it all in.

You can rest assured that it’s down to all of your hard work and determination, as noted by Jack Straw on numerous occasions, and without it, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Time to celebrate, relax and get on with our lives.

Update to follow…

Although possibly a little too late, the Ministry of Justice have, under the Freedom of Information Act, released the full list of sites under consideration for the building of Titan Prisons.

This list can be found on the MoJ Website - There are 76 locations on the list.  Two of them (yes, two!) in Warrington, one in Widnes, three in Wigan and one in St Helens (Stoke-on-Trent has 11 potential sites listed).

The two locations in Warrington are the Omega Development and one in Appleton - Dennow Farm.

It’s no wonder that the MoJ kept this quiet for so long.  According to one newspaper:

“They said it had been proving difficult to gain planning permission for the Titans. One proposed site, in Warrington, Cheshire, sparked ferocious protests.“

You bet it did.

Keep your comments coming - we’re reading every one of them.

We thank you for your support so far, and know that if we have to, we can rely on you all to come together again to fight the cause.  Just because the Titan Prisons have been scrapped, it doesn’t mean that the idea has gone altogether.  We are Warrington Residents Against Prison Proposal.

The Ministry of Justice will be announcing the list of the 5 proposed “smaller” (yet still very large) 1,500 place prisons tomorrow (Monday 27 April).  We’ll keep you updated.