Carillion locks up £100m prison deal

Carillion has knocked its only remaining rival, Skanska, out of the race for a £100m prison deal in Scotland.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has chosen Carillion as its preferred bidder to design and construct the new HMP Low Moss prison at the Bishopsbriggs site in East Dunbartonshire.

Interserve, Morgan Ashurst and Irish firm O'Hare McGovern also set their sights on the project, but were locked out of the deal earlier in the race.

The SPS is expected to sign a formal contract with Carillion in the summer.

Work on site is expected to start in September or October, following the go-ahead from planners.

The job, expected to take between 90 to 100 weeks to complete, involves a 700-cell maximum security prison.

An insider said: "Carillion probably had a head start at Low Moss.

"The firm carried out preliminary works at Bishopsbriggs, demolishing the existing 300-place prison and realigning a road."

The former prison consisted of an old RAF camp made up of single-storey wooden dormitories.

The development area for the new prison spans around 15ha and it is anticipated that 12%of cells in the new facility will acccommodate two prisoners.

Construction work on Low Moss will also include an exercise yard, sports facilities, a sewer system and infrastructure tasks.

And the SPS is aiming at a "very good" rating under the BREEAM model.

Now contractors are waiting for the SPS to roll out the next major project in Scotland.

This scheme, also provisionally valued at £100m, will be the 500-place HMP Grampian scheme to be built on the site of an existing prison at Peterhead.