Warrington Residents Against Prison Proposal

The Ministry of Justice has recently announced a further trawl for sites for a new prison in the North West, implying that, once again, Warrington may be under consideration.

Six months earlier, on the 27th April 2009, Jack Straw, in an Ministry of Justice statement, said:

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

The MoJ Press Release went on to say:

“The outcome of the site search will be a published shortlist of potential sites. Once a site is identified, consultation with local MPs, local authorities and residents will be undertaken in order to achieve the most open and transparent process possible.

Once consultation has concluded, we will seek to acquire that site with an appropriate planning consent.”

If the Ministry of Justice are now looking at Warrington again, it will be one of this governments quickest U-turns.

WRAPP are committed to holding the government to their word and will be contacting all concerned persons.

WRAPP will continue to strongly resist the siting of any new prison within Warrington.

You can subscribe to our newsletter or RSS feed to keep up to date with our updates.  We will be updating you with information as soon as we can.

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…