Mega prison plans for Aylesbury Vale village 'wrong at every level' says councillor

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) announced last week it will appeal against Buckinghamshire Council’s decision to reject plans for a new mega prison near Grendon and Edgcott.

But Grendon Underwood ward councillor Angela Macpherson says the mega prison plan is “wrong at every level” and the area is already badly impacted by HS2 works.

There were around 3,000 objections to the mega prison proposals, and Bucks Council planners voted unanimously to refuse planning permission.

Mrs Macpherson, who is also the deputy leader of Bucks Council, said: “We’ve heard from the MoJ that they’re going to appeal it and, frankly, not many of us were surprised.

"Here’s another big infrastructure project to be plumped down into the middle of a rural ward - like HS2.

"Crikey, haven’t people had enough in this area? It’s just absolute mayhem.”

“How much more can people absolutely take?”

And she added: “On so many levels, it’s just so wrong.

“It’s the wrong place, because it’s so rural and there’s lack of infrastructure and roads and everything for people to get there, but there really hasn’t been a proper, transparent consideration of other sites.

“We do believe there have got to be other brownfield sites closer to urban areas where they could get the staff from, the staff could travel on public transport – we haven’t got very much round Grendon.

“The governor of the prison herself said, even now in the current climate, finding staff is challenging.

"So how on earth they’re going to find hundreds more staff, how are you going to get people to live in the local area so they’re not making great big journeys to and from work and clogging up the road system even more than it already is?

"They can’t afford to buy houses because there aren’t any affordable houses.”

“It’s just crazy – they try to say there’s an economic case for it, but at the committee we blew that out of the water.

“So there’s so many levels where this is so, so wrong for this location.”

The Ministry of Justice has been contacted but has so far been unavailable for comment.