Prison PFI bids selected

Two consortia including Trafalgar House and Tarmac have been selected as preferred bidders for the latest contracts in the Government's private prison building programme.

Premier Prison Services, a consortium comprising Trafalgar House, Serco and Wackenhut Corrections, has been chosen as the preferred bidder for the Private Finance Initiative project to design, build, finance and operate Lowdham Grange Prison.

Premier has seen off a rival bid by UK Detention Services, the Mowlem, Sir Robert McAlpine, Corrections Corporation of America consortium. The capital cost of the contract is worth more than œ30 million and the overall cost about œ130 million. Premier already runs HMP Doncaster.

Lowdham Grange will be a 500-place Category B training prison. Its first prisoners should be moved in by January 1998 and it should be fully operational in March of that year. Lowdham is the third prison construction contract to go forward under the PFI. Contracts were signed on the first two prisons at Bridgend, Wales and Fazakerley, Merseyside in January this year.

A Tarmac-Group 4 consortium has been chosen as the Government's preferred bidder to design, build, manage and finance the first two Secure Training Centres for persistent juvenile offenders.

Tarmac-Group 4 will build and run the Secure Training Centres at Cookham Wood in Kent and Gringley in Nottinghamshire. Each centre will provide 40 places for persistent juvenile offenders aged between 12 and 14. The construction value of the two centres will total around œ18 million.

A total of five Secure Training Centres are to be built under the Government's programme. The other three will be at Onley in Northants, Medomsley in Durham and at a fifth site, which will serve the South West of England and South Wales.