Final appeal over prison build in Chorley fails
The four-year battle to block construction of a 1,715-inmate jail in Ulnes Walton ended at the High Court on Monday
Residents of a Chorley village have been told a third prison will definitely be built in their midst after a last-ditch legal challenge to the plans failed.
The four-year battle to block construction of a 1,715-inmate jail in Ulnes Walton ended at the High Court on Monday with a judge’s decision not to grant locals leave to appeal against the controversial development.
The category C ‘super prison’ will now spring up on land alongside the existing Garth and Wymott lock-ups, near Leyland.
It means the combined jail population in the area will reach more than 3,700 – exceeding the number of people living in the village itself by around 1,000.
The Ulnes Walton Action Group (UWAG), which spearheaded the attempt to derail the prison plans, said “local democracy has been the loser”.
South Ribble MP Paul Foster, in whose constituency the new jail will stand, said he was “hugely disappointed” by the High Court decision.
The resettlement facility – which will house men nearing the end of their sentences – was first put on the table by the previous Conservative government before also being pursued by the new Labour administration in an effort to bolster the country’s dwindling prison capacity.
Deputy Prime Minister and local government secretary Angela Rayner gave the green light to the prison back in December. In doing so, she went against the recommendation of a planning inspector, who had chaired two public inquiries into the proposal, and concluded the local roads would not be able to cope with the volume of construction traffic required to build the jail.
Emma Curtis, from Ulnes Walton Action Group, said the judge’s final ruling ending their “valiant campaign” was “frustrating and a massive disappointment to all concerned”.
Fellow campaigner Paul Parker told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) there was no reason to believe that predictions made during the public inquiry process – of periods when up to 200 HGV trips a day would be taking place along the narrow Ulnes Walton Lane – would not now come to pass.
“Those vehicle movements are based on the transport plan that the Ministry of Justice themselves committed to. They are pretty good estimates because they are based on previous prison sites.
“Bearing in mind, this is on a C-class road – which is barely wide enough to take two HGVs traveling in opposite directions – it’s going to be chaos.
“It’s also not a good idea to build a rehabilitation prison in a rural area, where the road network will not support the transport needs of the inmates.
“These prisons are meant to be rehabilitating offenders, so they get back into society and start contributing again – and that’s a positive outcome.
“But how can you do that when the bus service is so poor that you’ve got an hour’s journey, if not longer, to get to work – and it is difficult for family and friends to visit you?” Paul asked.
He said the group had focused on “facts and evidence” – and had actually succeeded in demonstrating the potential dangers of the plans, in spite of the final outcome.
“A planning inspector has twice concurred with our conclusion – so, in effect, we have won.
“What has happened is the Secretary of State has actually imposed her decision over a planning inspector’s decision – and that is her right.
“But we have persuaded an independent planning inspector, with no political bias – and basing his decision on the law – to say you shouldn’t build it, because the risk to road safety is unacceptable.”
The ruling of the High Court judge who refused to grant UWAG leave to appeal was delivered orally and has not yet been published in full.
Paul Foster – who had previously supported the UWAG fight during his time as leader of South Ribble Borough Council, whose patch borders the prison site – said there remain “a number of substantial issues” in connection with the roads, which will now have to be addressed.
“There are now no further legal challenges permitted and so it is my job – along with the local planning authority – to work closely with the Ministry of Justice to ensure the outstanding issues are resolved and we make the best of a bad situation.
“We must ensure the final proposals submitted are acceptable – and, most importantly, safe. I plan to meet with the local campaign group as quickly as possible, prior to my meeting with ministers,” Mr. Foster said.
UWAG have thanked their legal team, who provided their services for free throughout the process. However, the group will now have to call in the financial pledges they secured earlier this year from the local community to cover the costs of their High Court challenge should it fail – as it now has.
As the LDRS revealed at the time, a fundraising target of £10,000 had been set, but it has not been publicly announced how much was ultimately pledged.
JOURNEY TO A NEW JAIL
The Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) initial application for planning permission for the prison was rejected by Chorley Council in December 2021. The Tory government appealed against that decision and a public inquiry sat to consider the matter the following summer.
The then Communities Secretary, Michael Gove, took the unusual step of ‘recovering’ the appeal – meaning he would have the final say, having taken into account the recommendations of the planning inspector chairing the proceedings.
That inspector, Tom Gilbert-Wooldridge, said the appeal should be dismissed on road safety, greenbelt and visual appearance grounds, but Mr. Gove said in January 2023 he was “minded to” grant permission – if the highways issues highlighted during the inquiry could be overcome.
To establish whether or not that was the case, the inquiry was reopened in March last year and heard further evidence from the MoJ, Chorley Council and locals opposing the prison.
After considering the fresh submissions – which included a claim by a highways witness appearing on behalf of Chorley Council that HGVs could be travelling along the rural Ulnes Walton Lane at a rate of one every 90 seconds during some periods of the prison construction and that there were stretches where some lorries would have to reverse if they had to pass each other in opposite directions – Mr. Gilbert-Wooldridge again recommended the appeal be refused.
He acknowledged that while new proposals to lessen the impact of the development on the local road network had “improved” the position since the first inquiry was held, “there remain unmitigated and uncertain effects that would exacerbate existing hazards and risk”.
To that end, he found that building the prison would “continue to have an unacceptable impact on highway safety” – and so would be contrary to elements of local and national planning policy.
While Angela Rayner agreed with some of the highways issues raised by the inspector, she considered they would cause only “limited harm”.
She considered that the remaining adverse impacts of the project should carry only “moderate weight” against the proposal, while giving “significant weight” to the actual need for the development – and gave the prison the go-ahead in December 2024.
The Ulnes Walton Action Group (UWAG) launched a final attempt to get the jail plan jettisoned by seeking a judicial review of that move.
The first stage of the process ended in defeat in April after a High Court judge concluded Ms. Rayner – acting in her capacity as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government – made a lawful and reasonable decision.
UWAG then went down the last legal avenue open to it – by applying to ‘renew’ its application for judicial review, which culminated in a one-day hearing in London on 4th June, during which the case for both sites was presented to a judge. Leave to appeal Ms. Rayner’s decision was ultimately refused.
PRISON PROBLEMS
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said last month that UK prisons were 99 percent full.
“If we don’t do anything now, we risk a total breakdown in law and order,” she warned, while at the same time announcing the building of three new prisons, including the one now finally confirmed for Chorley.
The Labour government has committed to the previous Conservative administration’s policy of creating an extra 20,000 prison places – around 6,000 of which were delivered before the party came to power.
An early release scheme was implemented for over 5,000 prisoners last autumn, as jails neared capacity, and further measures have had to be taken since – including changes to the recall system for former inmates who re-offend while out on licence.