Wrexham Prison Planning Application Details Published

A mammoth planning application to build the ‘Wrexham Prison’ has been submitted to the Council by the Ministry of Justice.

Due to the nature of the planning application we were going to upload each PDF to Wrexham.com, highlighting any bits we found to be of interest. However, the documents on the Council’s site weigh in at over two gigabytes of information. Due to the nature of the development this is not unexpected, however it does pose the question on how accessible the information is for such a major project for the town.

Even on a relatively fast connection it took a while to download the files, so we spoke with the planning department who told us they are able to supply a reasonable number of copies on CD/DVD if people get in touch and request them. Also we were told hard copies are viewable, however as there are several thousand pages of information we suggest people request information specifically!

We encourage anyone who also takes a look and spots information that they think is of interest to post it in the forum thread – and be warned some files are gigantic!

Proposed Site Layout
A first look of the formal site layout is enclosed here to read, along with an image of the proposed layout below:

3D Site Views
As per the title, this document contains projected views of the prison:

Proposed Sections
This document contains side on views of the prison from various locations surrounding the site.

Location Plan
This is the ‘red line’ boundary document, showing the site location. This is very much like the proposed site layout image above, but without the buildings on it!

Proposed Elevations

This PDF contains 13 pages of the look and feel of the prison with detailed elevations for the buildings proposed.

Proposed Junction Layouts

A one page document detailing the access road plans, as pictured:

Statement of Community Consultation

This 46 page file gives a break down of the community consultation that has apparently taken place. This includes leaflet drops, public exhibitions and meetings. Details of responses to consultations are given, for example the ‘comments box’ at the September exhibition is broken down to 41 responses: 21 from businesses, with 19 of those interested in supply services and the like. The main concerns were tabulated, with traffic increases being the main worry.

Further consultations are detailed, with the Abenbury Community Council facilitating 31 comments. The highest concern appears to be the proximity of the prison to Pentre Maelor.

Shift patterns, visitor numbers (~100 a day) are detailed, with the stat that around 80% of the staff are likely to use cars to get to the site. Interestingly another document says there will be 300 spaces for staff and 120 reserved for visitors.

The appendices which make up most of the document include site plans, copies of leaflets handed out and the like.

Environmental Statement

This is a 427 page document detailing everything from the fencing used (3mm steel sheet topped with fence then ‘s-wire’ on top) to conservation impact of the development.

This document does also detail job information. The demolition and construction part of the project is due to create 122 jobs, and 33 further indirectly induced jobs.

The completed development will see 764 directly employed people at the prison, with 385 indirectly created jobs claimed.

House prices are also mentioned with the prison being described as having a ‘neutral effect’ at a local level.

Page 224 has some interesting graphics giving air quality readings for those who are interested. Details of the predicted impact on the Clywedog River are detailed from page 350.

Environmental Statement : Technical Appendices (1,2 and 3) – These documents can be found here, here and here on the Council’s site and are ‘supporting documents’ for the above. Appendices one. Appendices two. Appendices three.

Travel Plan

The travel plan contains details of a proposed plan for whoever ends up running the prison on how they should encourage staff and visitors to get to and from the prison. As this is an outline plan and un-adopted it does not appear to mean much, however it does say once and operator of the prison is identified the plan will be more formalised.

Transport & Access Statement

This is a report assessing the development from a transport perspective, it was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice to support the planning application. The report is 200 pages long, however the majority is appendices or source data, with the conclusions section to be found on page 31. It basically states there are no capacity issues and the site is ‘well served’ by public transport.

BREEAM Assessment

The Ministry of Justice has not employed a fish to give its verdict, rather it is the document for a BRE Environmental Assessment Method, which is a ‘method of assessing, rating and certifying the sustainability of buildings’. Page 10 has the scores presented in a pie chart, with the following pages showing the reasoning behind it.

Planning Statement

This is the formal planning statement from the Ministry of Justice, and is essentially a summary document of all of the above. The process is detailed in this flow chart, so those looking to feedback can now do so via the Council’s planning system:

There is an ongoing debate on the Wrexham Prison development on this thread on our forums!