Earlier this week as part of George Osborne's spending review, it was announced that nine new prisons would be built in England and Wales to replace the country's Victorian jails. The modernisation of the prison estate will save an estimated £80m a year in reduced costs claims the Shadow Chancellor.
The plan is to sell the sites in order to build thousands of much-needed new homes. It is predicted that more than 3,000 properties could be built on the city centre sites of the old prisons.
