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CRIMINAL justice experts have slammed plans to close Holloway women’s prison and “decant” inmates to “leafy Surrey”.

Juliet Lyon, of the Prison Reform Trust, said that moving women outside London and away from their families would undermine attempts to rehabilitate offenders.

Speaking after the publication of a report into conditions at the Camden Road prison, which found it provided “very good” support to the most vulnerable inmates, Ms Lyon said: “Decanting vulnerable women far from their families into hard-to-visit prisons in leafy Surrey does nothing to address the overuse of imprisonment and its damaging impact on women, young children, the staff who do their best to care for them and taxpayers who foot the bill.”

In November last year George Osborne announced that the prison would close. The chancellor told the House of Commons: “In the future, women prisoners will serve their sentences in more humane conditions, better designed to keep them away from crime.”

With around 500 inmates, HMP Holloway is said to be the biggest women’s jail in western Europe. Despite issues with the condition of the building, it has been praised for its work resettling women.

The latest report by the Independent Monitoring Board, released on Wednesday, said: “As has been emphasised many times before, while Holloway’s design and the fabric of the buildings may be less than ideal, its strength, in terms of its location, access to services and outside agencies which helped its transition into a resettlement prison and saw it deliver to budget at a time of dramatic government cuts, did in the view of the IMB outweigh the concerns about its size or the dilapidation of the buildings.”

The report said that workshops, such as the one run by the London College of Fashion in which women produce clothing lines that are eventually available on the high street, could be lost.

The report said: “It is a concern that the therapeutic services which can greatly benefit offenders’ lives and behaviour may be less likely to be available outside London, but it is the loss of a team which has been built over years that is the greatest concern.”

The conditions at Holloway were thrown into the spotlight once again in February, when Sarah Reed was found dead in her cell. Her family said she had “severe mental health issues” and believe she was failed by the prison service.

The report noted an “increasing numbers of mentally ill women are coming into custody as funding for general mental health services in the community diminishes”. It added: “The severe shortage of high and medium secure psychiatric beds in hospitals continues to make it very difficult for prisoners requiring hospital treatment for their mental illness to be transferred out of Holloway despite the best efforts of staff.”

But it said that, despite the difficulties already experienced, things are likely to get worse when Holloway closes.

Following the announcement last year, justice secretary Michael Gove said female offenders in London would be held at HMP Bronzefield and HMP Downview, both in Surrey.

He said: “This will allow sentenced women to be held in an environment that is more appropriate for many of those currently sent to Holloway. Both provide a better setting for children visiting their mothers. Both are well located with good transport links to London.

“I am very grateful to the hardworking staff in the prison who have deservedly won praise for their work. Despite their inspirational efforts, Holloway’s design and physical state do not provide the best environment for the rehabilitation of women offenders.”