Plan for 20,000 more prison places in England and Wales won’t be complete until 2030

HMP Fosse Way in Leicester, which opened in May. The target of opening all six new prisons by 2027 is no longer possible, a government insider has said. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

Plans for 20,000 additional prison places by the mid 2020s are not expected to be completed until 2030 due to planning delays.

The £4bn programme has been hit by further problems this summer, a Whitehall source said, which means the new cells will not be available to head off the current capacity crisis.