MIDDLETON residents have branded the cost of converting the former Pontin's Holiday camp into a prison as "criminal." This week Morecambe's MP, Geraldine Smith (pictured), learned proposals to turn Middleton Sands into a category C prison could cost more than £25 million. The local MP asked Prison's Minister Joyce Quinn how much the estimated cost of the controversial project would be and was astounded when the returned figures quoted were from £18-£25million.

"That's an awful lot of money to spend on converting a former holiday camp into a prison for just 3 years," said Miss Smith.

"And these figures are 12 months old and don't take inflation into account. The Home Office has surely got to see sense. It's an awful lot of public money to house 700 prisoners. How much does that work out for each inmate? The figures make me more optimistic that the prison won't be built. It will surely cost too much and it's probably better to build a new prison from scratch. Just imagine what sort of holiday camp you could get for £25 million."

Prison minister Joyce Quinn also confirmed that £1 million of the final sum was needed to build a new access road and make environmental improvements.

Local residents, who thought the cost of doing up the former Pontin's camp would be around £5 million, were astonished at the figure.

Anti-prison campaigner, Barbara Williams, said: "It's criminal! Local people will be horrified that £25 million of taxpayers' money could be spent in this way. How many times do we have to pay for these people? If they do go ahead and build the prison you can be sure it won't be for just three years. From the estimated figures it seems that they will have to knock it all down and start again. I've also heard that they plan to use half-way houses in Morecambe to rehabilitate some of the offenders. They're turning it into a penal colony"

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