HMP Kennet will be demolished this summer to make way for the development of a hospital park.
The former category C men's prison in Maghull has a storied, if brief, history and closed in 2017, just 10 years after it opened. The prison came to be when the National Offender Management Service faced overcrowding in prisons across the country in 2006. One of the solutions to combat the issue was for Ashworth high security hospital’s east site to be converted into a prison. After a £19m conversion project , this became known as Kennet Prison.
When the facility opened officially in February 2008, it was said it would help solve the region’s prison population crisis. This didn't go exactly to plan.
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After just two years the prison had become among the most overcrowded in the country. At the time, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice, HMP Kennet was running at 193% capacity, holding nearly double the amount of inmates it was designed for.
In 2015, inmates hatched a plan and planted maggots in their food in a cheeky bid to win compensation payouts. The following year, 44-year-old Donna Cluskey was jailed for nearly four years after taking cocaine, heroin and cannabis into the Maghull jail. She said it was to protect her partner who she said had been badly beaten, suffering a punctured lung and broken ribs which left him hospitalised.
That same month, Michael Gove announced the prison would close by July 2017 - less than 10 years after it was opened. Mr Gove said Kennet had been "poorly designed" and one of the most expensive of its time.
Having been out of use for seven years, it faces the wrecking ball following the significant development of the nearby Maghull Health Park, a high-security health facility which treats mental health and learning disability patients.
Mersey Care said the sight of the decaying property was unsettling for some of the most vulnerable patients, and so the £1.5m demolition of the site was agreed with an expected completion date of February 2024.
Elaine Darbyshire, MerseyCare’s executive director of estates and communications, said: “Over the last decade, Mersey Care and the NHS have invested tens of millions of pounds into Maghull".
“We’ve created an impressive concentration of highly skilled and experienced staff and innovative services, as well as building two new hospitals and our internal pharmacy service. These sit alongside the existing Ashworth Hospital and Trust conference facilities.
“Maghull Health Park is a stunning therapeutic environment, with a focus on integrating physical and mental health care and moving patients on through services, with beautiful buildings, landscaping, artwork, and exercise facilities. Sitting alongside all this is a decaying prison building which we’re delighted will now be cleared.”
Following the demolition, the prison site will be landscaped as part of Maghull Health Park’s development.
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