Letter: Why we must save Stoke Heath

Letter: I have been astonished to learn the Stoke Heath prison is to have the young offenders removed from its site due to the Youth Justice Board cancelling its contract with the jail.

This is a facility that serves Wales and the whole of the West Midlands including Merseyside.

The demise of this facility will mean the nearest youth offending facilities will be near Southport. However, the outrageous issue about this is that Government facts show the Stoke Heath facility is almost £10,000 cheaper per inmate per year than its rivals.

My calculations on the figures within the public domain mean that I as a tax-payer will have to cough up an additional £6 million a year to support the same number of young offenders at other more expensive and distant sites.

Stoke Heath is recognised by the HMIP and Ofsted as being top of the tree for the type of facilities it supplies, so why have they decided to cancel a contract, remove a facility that is central to its catchment area, is cheaper than its rivals prisons?

Or is it a matter of again another government agency not using joined-up writing and wasting the taxpayers' money, or is it just the new Government have not circulated the memo to the Youth Justice Board that we the country are in a financial crises?

Dave Cooper

Shrewsbury