Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Residents do not want custody unit at campus
PRISON bosses have failed to win over residents opposed to their plan to build a custody unit next to a new community campus.
While many people understand its purpose, almost everyone the Tele spoke to at an information session in the Maxwell Centre believe its location is inappropriate.
Yesterday, the Tele exclusively revealed a first look at the Scottish Prison Service’s (SPS) proposed community custody unit (CCU) in Dundee.
The SPS hopes to build the unit on the site of Our Lady’s Primary School, after pupils move into the new Coldside Community Campus later this year.
They argue that the unit, housing up to 16 female offenders, has to be based in a community setting to help reintegrate offenders back into society through work placements and other local activities.
However, Margaret Lamb, 71, who has lived in the Hilltown for half of her life, said she worried about inmates absconding, as has happened at nearby Castle Huntly.
She added: “I don’t know why they should get this state-of-the-art building when we have all these homeless people in our city.
“What if, down the line, they build another unit, and another one, and another one beside it?
“I get what they are doing but it shouldn’t be built here.”
Elizabeth Baird, 68, questioned the logic of placing the unit beside newly-built homes and schools.
“They got rid of some of the multis, which had problems, but those at the bottom of the hill still have issues. The police are never out of there,” she said.
“Why are they creating a new community campus and putting this right smack bang in the middle? ‘‘It’s disgraceful.” Tom Henney, who drew up a petition against the custody unit, said he wasn’t opposed to the SPS proposals.
‘‘My opinion is still the same – nobody has any objection to what they’re trying to do but there are other areas better suited for this,” he said.
“My biggest concern (offenders) get out.
‘‘There are drugs, there is crime and it shouldn’t be here.”
However, Ann Hutchison, 57, who lives two minutes from Our Lady’s, said she was “keeping an open mind” on the plans.
She added: “I’m glad the prison service are out speaking to the community. They should be.”
Councillors were also in attendance at the information session, but couldn’t comment directly on the proposals as they are yet to come through the planning system.
The SPS’s Tom Fox said it was inevitable that locals were concerned, but added: “Most of these are based on i deas of something that this unit isn’t.
‘‘It is not a prison.” is if