The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has blamed a review on radon regulations for the delay in its multimillion-pound remediation of HMP Dartmoor.<\/p>\n
The prison has been closed since August 2024 after high levels of radon gas were detected.<\/p>\n
Despite the closure, the MoJ still signed a new lease up until 2033 and has been paying \u00a34m a year for rent and utilities.<\/p>\n
A new report by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has now heavily criticised the MoJ for \u201cpoor decision making\u201d in signing a lease for an empty prison and for failing to put firm plans in place for its remediation.<\/p>\n
However, the MoJ claims it is waiting for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to complete its review on workplace radon regulations.<\/p>\n
The PAC criticised the MoJ for having no \u201cclear plans for how and when\u201d it will begin any remediation. It has ordered the ministry to write to it setting out its proposals and how much the work will cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked the MoJ at what point it would make a judgement on whether continuing the works represented the best value for money,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe MoJ told us that to date it has spent \u00a31.2m on radon mitigation works, but that it is not currently spending any money on the site until it decides whether to reoccupy the prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt explained that it cannot make a decision on this until work the HSE is doing to look at workplace radon regulations is complete.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urged the MoJ and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to factor in the possibility that there may be asbestos in the roof of the prison into its decision. There must be total transparency on all these matters as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report says HMPPS signed the new lease in March 2022 despite knowing that there were high levels of radon at the site in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore concerningly, it signed the lease before carrying out further comprehensive radon testing, which it subsequently completed in July 2022,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHMPPS claims that its decision to renew the lease when it did was sensible, given the context of the urgent need for prison places. However, despite its knowledge that radon was present at the site, it failed to negotiate a reduction to the annual rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not accept that the prison capacity crisis excuses such poor commercial decisions, which have resulted in this needless waste of taxpayer\u2019s money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PAC has recommended that HMPPS should set out what it has learned from the failures of its decision-making and contract management of the HMP Dartmoor lease negotiations, and how it will ensure that any future contracts deliver value for money.<\/p>\n
In the UK, the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017 require employers to take action if radon levels inside a workplace exceed an annual average level of 300 Bq\/m3<\/sup> (becquerels per cubic metre of air).<\/p>\n A 2020 assessment of the site showed that radon levels were above 300 Bq\/m3<\/sup> in several areas, including the kitchen, which had a reading nearly 10 times the acceptable limit.<\/p>\n \u201cHMPPS acknowledged that it would have been helpful to have more information on the density of radon at the Dartmoor site prior to the lease negotiations,\u201d the PAC said.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, it bizarrely maintained that signing the lease without undertaking a recent survey was sensible, given the prison capacity crisis at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the contract there is a requirement for the government to pay additional costs of around \u00a368m on fabric improvements to the Dartmoor site over the period of the lease.<\/p>\n The PAC said the MoJ told it in January 2025 that it aimed to remediate HMP Dartmoor and bring it back into use if it could find a technical solution to radon issues at the site.<\/p>\n \u201cThe MoJ reiterated that this remains its ambition as it does not want to lose permanently the capacity the prison provides,\u201d the PAC added.<\/p>\n \u201cIt explained that it had engaged a wide range of suppliers, including radon mitigation specialists, the UK Health Security Agency, independent radon protection advisers and airflow engineers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has blamed a review on radon regulations for the delay in its multimillion-pound remediation of HMP Dartmoor. The prison has been closed since August 2024 after high levels of radon gas were detected. Despite the closure, the MoJ still signed a new lease up until 2033 and has been paying …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155153,"featured_media":535505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[547,565],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buildings","category-government"],"yoast_head":"\n