WRAP - No prison in Westbury

For over two and a half years from October 2020, WRAP fought tirelessly against two senseless government proposals to burden the small rural town of Westbury with the Northern Regional Prison.

In May 2022, the Tasmanian Government announced that the site of the Ashley Youth Detention Centre (AYDC) in Deloraine is now the only location being considered for the development of the Northern Correctional Facility (the government's revised name for their proposed new prison in Tasmania).

Proposed prison sites - Meander Valley
Base map data from OpenStreetMap

Proposed prison sites:

  • Site 1: Westbury industrial precinct - Birralee Rd, Westbury
  • Site 2: Brushy Rivulet Reserve - Birralee Rd, Westbury
  • Site 3: AYDC site - Meander Valley Rd, Deloraine

Even though the latest proposed prison site is not within the boundary of Westbury - unlike the previous two proposed prison sites - it is still close enough to Westbury that WRAP is sure that it would still have an undesirable impact on the small, historic town of Westbury.

During November 2023, the Department of Justice released a draft Social Impact Assessment report prepared by their consultants on the consequences of building a prison at the AYDC site.

Click here to download the draft Social Impact Assessment report from the Department of Justice website.

This report shows that there will be adverse impacts on Westbury, as well as Deloraine and Exton, if the prison is built at the AYDC site.

One of the issues identified is that there is currently insufficient housing in the Meander Valley to accommodate the number of staff who would ultimately be employed at the proposed facility. This may lead to attempts to ramp up poor quality housing stock development in Westbury, in addition to that which is already occurring.

Information is readily available on how prisons operate at great impost to the community. For example, the Four Corners documentary "Breaking Free" broadcast on ABC TV on 3 June 2024 highlighted how the prison system fails to rehabilitate inmates and therefore actually generates more crime, making our communities less safe.

View the Four Corners episode on ABC iView here

Read an article about the Four Corners episode on the ABC News website here

Building a second prison in Tasmania at great expense won't magically fix the problems with the justice system in Tasmania.

WRAP is opposed to the construction of a new prison anywhere in Tasmania.