Wellingborough's new £253m 'super prison' HMP Five Wells opens to inmates

Wellingborough's new £253m jail - HMP Five Wells - has opened to prisoners, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has confirmed.

The first of the 1,680 inmates have started arrived at the G4S-run 'super prison', built on the site of the former Wellingborough prison and one-time borstal.

Mothballed in December 2012, the old buildings were flattened in 2019 to make way for the new build category C 'resettlement' prison.

Construction company Kier was awarded contract to build the new facility by the MoJ under its Prison Estate Transformation Programme.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice today (Friday) confirmed that the new prison had opened, telling our reporter: "It has opened. I can confirm that verbally."

The Northants Telegraph has repeatedly asked those involved with the prison build for media access ahead of its opening because we want to show and tell readers what taxpayers' cash has been spent on. It is one of Northamptonshire's biggest ever public spend building projects.

On each occasion our request has been met with a promise that it would be given when plans are agreed, which is so far yet to materialise.

A spokesman for G4S, the company awarded the ten-year contract, said the MoJ had asked them to hold off giving details about the prison until after a 'completion event' which they hope will be soon.

The prison has seven houseblocks with more than 60,000 sq m of accommodation areas and ancillary buildings.

With no bars on the windows, and smaller modern wings that hold just 20 men, the building has been designed in line with the MoJ’s commitment for an 'environment conducive to rehabilitation'.

The jail has been planned since 2018, and has become one of the biggest prisons in the UK. Many inmates will be at the end of long sentences and preparing for life outside of prison.

MP for Wellingborough Peter Bone has been campaigning to get the former HMP Wellingborough re-opened since its closure in December 2012, which led to the loss of almost 600 prison places.

Corby MP Tom Pursglove, the parliamentary under secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice, jointly with the Home Office), said: "I am delighted that this new super prison is going to be open which of course is going to employ his (Mr Bone's) constituents and mine. I think it's fair to say he listened, campaigned and delivered."

In 2020, after G4S was announced to have won the initial ten-year contract to manage the prison, the company estimated that the revenues would be worth £300m.

A spokesman said: "The new-generation category C facility will be run with a strong focus on rehabilitation in order to break the cycle of reoffending.

"Total revenues over the life of the contract are expected to be around £300m and G4S will create around 700 new jobs to manage and operate the contract."

The building has not been without controversy, attracting a two-day lock-on protest in April 2021 and an anti-Covid protest in December by people who believed it was going to become a quarantine camp for unvaccinated people.