Four in the frame for £70m West Lothian prison break

Groups from the UK, US and Australia are vying to unlock a £70m PFI prison deal in Scotland.
The identity parade for the Scottish Prison Service's Addiewell Prison scheme in West Lothian is MTC (Management and Training Corporation) with Multiplex, GSL with Group 4 and Miller Construction, GEO with Laing O'Rourke and a consortium featuring Interserve.
The line-up is also interesting because none of the three contractors that the Scottish Prison Service chose last year to handle £200m-plus worth of prison work under a framework deal (Amec, Skanska and Carillion) appear on the final line-up for Addiewell.
Carillion was initially on board as the GSL/Group 4 contractor, but the firm subsequently turned its back on the deal and was replaced by Miller. It is believed that neither Amec nor Skanska pitched for the project.
MTC, an American prison company based in Utah, and which set up Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib jail, has established a London headquarters and is bidding in tandem with Australian contractor Multiplex. MTC is planning to run a number of prisons in the UK, including the extension of London's Belmarsh jail, which holds terrorist suspects.
GSL operates in the UK, South Africa and Australia, and in 1994 won the contract for the first prison to be built in the UK under PFI - the Altcourse jail in Liverpool. The firm also operates Rye Hill prison on the Warwickshire/ Northamptonshire border.
GEO - formerly the Wackenhut Correction Corporation - is also a US prison operator.
The Addiewell deal comprises building and operating a jail for 700 inmates. The plan is for the scheme to be awarded this summer, with the prison opening in 2006 or 2007, subject to approval by the Scottish Executive and West Lothian Council's planning consent.