'Oh aye, let’s go to the bingo in Barlinnie’

Every time Maureen Kelly visits her Uncle Gerard at his Southside care home, the retired priest’s first question is the same: what’s happening with the new prison? Kelly’s Germiston home overlooks a vast plot being prepared for a prison facility set to replace the infamous HMP Barlinnie. Her elderly relative is keen for a progress report. 

But while Kelly, 79, gets a panoramic view of the site every time she opens her blinds, her answer is always the same: she’s seen diggers shifting piles of earth, but beyond that she has no clue. 

There has been much chatter about HMP Glasgow since Barlinnie was declared unfit for purpose in early 2020. Based along the road in Riddrie, the creaking Victorian prison, designed to hold 987 inmates, was regularly housing well over 1,300. Dealing with the cramped conditions meant rehabilitation had become an afterthought. 

Plans for a new jail were quickly brought forward and, later that year, Glasgow City Council gave the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) permission to develop 54 abandoned acres next to the old Provan Gas Works. Sandwiched between the M8 and Royston Road, the land had lain derelict for decades. Putting the new prison there, thinking went, would not only solve Barlinnie’s problems but would help regenerate the local area too.