Picking up multiple awards at the Offsite Awards 2020 and the coveted Winner of Winners honour, the newbuild resettlement prison in Wellingborough is an exemplar for integration, collaborative working and a successful offsite methodology.
Wellingborough’s primary purpose is to create spaces that encourage rehabilitation and support a reduction in reoffending. It is the first in a series of schemes to be undertaken as part of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) wider challenge to reform and modernise the prison estate to make it more efficient, safer and focused on rehabilitation. Situated on a 36-acre site in Northampton, this vast £253million project will deliver 1,680 prison places. Led by the MoJ, each partner has worked single-mindedly from day one to create a highperforming, collaborative team with shared objectives and values.
The scale of the build has facilitated investment within Kier’s supply chain and the MoJ has been keen that Kier takes every opportunity to use Wellingborough as a platform to educate, train and inspire new and existing industry professionals to fully appreciate all aspects of digital and offsite construction. This provided Kier and their supply chain with a perfect storm as a platform for digital platforms and design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) advancement. The results have been considerable and diverse – providing direct project benefits, wider economic gains, as well as programme-wide improvements through standardisation, digital integration and offsite construction.
In procuring the Prison Estate Transformation Programme – which resulted in the newbuild prison at Wellingborough – MoJ knew that in order to meet the demand for 10,000 new prison places, a new approach was required. This included setting ‘golden principles’ that apply beyond Wellingborough and establishing a platform-based design that can be utilised across its wider 10,000 prison places programme, thereby creating economies of scale and driving an offsite approach. A core feature of the programme is to optimise how the MoJ’s assets are designed, procured, delivered and operated, through a DfMA or ‘platform’ approach. Compared with traditional construction, this involved forming an integrated, cohesive team much earlier in the process, bringing in specialist input to maximise value.
The result is updated technical standards, that reflect a new category of prison and an enhanced rehabilitative environment delivered through a rapid repeatable build process. A platform for delivering future prisons more quickly and efficiently. The standardised design that can be rolled-out across the additional 10,000 prison places programme quickly and efficiently. Increased stakeholder engagement was required to agree on a new design that could create smaller cohorts of prisoners and be procured through supply chain partners that would share the MoJ’s drive for digital, offsite construction and a partnering ethos. Challenges included agreeing common specifications details, along with maximising the attractiveness to the precast concrete market to leverage economies of scale.
