Super prison location mystery

A huge new super-jail housing 2,500 prisoners is to be built in the West Midlands – but nobody knows where.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced last night that three new "Titan" prisons would be built in the three regions most under strain from overcrowding – the South East, the West Midlands and the North West.

Officials said the new jail would be built on a so-called "brownfield" site, but made it clear that no site had yet been identified. The Titan prisons will be bigger than any built before in the United Kingdom, covering the size of around 30 football pitches.

Government officials will now begin the search for suitable sites in the knowledge that almost any proposal will meet with local opposition.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "No potential sites have been identified at this stage, but the intention is that these prisons will be built on brownfield sites with good transport links to the areas which have greatest demands for housing offenders, therefore allowing reasonably easy access for families and friends.

"We are moving away from some of the capacity developments in recent years that have expanded prisons in isolated rural locations with poor public transport services."

It is not clear whether the Titan jail proposal would be in addition to an expected application for a 1,000-inmate new institution at Featherstone Prison, near Wolverhampton.

The Prison Governors' Association warned the super-jails would run an increased risk of lack of control. But ministers stressed they would be split into five separate units, each housing 500 prisoners.

Mr Straw announced a £1.6 billion prison building and expansion programme which would raise the prisons capacity by 15,000 from the current 81,000 to 96,000 over seven years.

In addition to the Titan jails, a prison ship is to be ordered from Holland, and the former military camp at Coltishall, Norfolk, is to be turned into a jail for 500.