11 Dec 2001

The Prison Service has announced that the consortium, of which Interserve Plc is a member, is sole preferred bidder for the new £265 million prison project at Peterborough.  Other members of the consortium are Sodexho Alliance SA and the Royal Bank Project Investments Limited.  The operator of the prison will be UK Detention Services Limited.

Peterborough in Cambridgeshire will be an 840 place Category B prison providing 480- places for remand and sentenced males and 360 places for remand and sentenced women, including a 12-place Mother and Baby Unit.  This will be the first purpose-built prison in England and Wales to accommodate both men and women.

Interserve will, in addition to taking an equity stake, provide design, construction and engineering services for the c.£60 million capital element of the project.

This follows on from the announcement last month that the same consortium are preferred bidder for the £213m Category B Prison for women at Ashford in Middlesex, and in which Interserve will also take an equity stake.