FAITHFUL+GOULD AIDS MINISTRY OF JUSTICE ON £415M PFI PRISON SCHEME

The first prison to be procured under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) for a number of years has reached financial close, with Project Management and Cost Consultants, Faithful+Gould providing project management services to the Ministry of Justice National Offender Management Service (NOMS).

The £415 million Belmarsh West PFI New Prison in South London will be operated by Serco, and designed and built under a £100m construction contract by their construction partner Skanska. The new prison, built to category B standards, is designed to achieve BREEAM excellent rating.

Faithful+Gould was appointed to provide project management by the Ministry of Justice in September 2009 to see the scheme through to financial close and thereafter to completion of construction and opening, planned for the first half of 2012.

Geoff Lewis, Associate Director at Faithful+Gould and project manager for Belmarsh West Prison said: “This is an exciting project to be involved in that further demonstrates our strengths in both the prison sector and in managing PFI projects, which by their very nature require a certain set of skills and experience. We are proud to have worked with the Ministry of Justice National Offender Management Service to deliver a purpose built, modern prison that utilises previously unusable brownfield land.”

Faithful+Gould is also providing project management services on the Featherstone 2 project, which is a new build, traditionally procured prison with more than 1,500 spaces, and is the largest scheme currently being constructed in the sector.