黑洞社区

Flawed design and rushed construction were major factors in the riots and fire which ravaged the Yarl鈥檚 Wood immigration centre two years ago, an official report has found.

The 拢74m centre, designed and built by contractor Amey in partnership with Group 4 GSL, was half-destroyed by rioting detainees in February 2002. This week鈥檚 report by Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Stephen Shaw slammed the building as 鈥渁stonishingly flimsy鈥�, claiming that it was not fit to hold the detainees securely or to contain them once violence broke out.

The report points to specific flaws in the construction of the building, including the positioning of the command suite in an area accessible by detainees. The report also criticised the corridor style design, which prevented staff splitting the building into zones to control the riots.

Summarising the report, Shaw said: 鈥淧hysical shortcomings in the design of the building made the management of a disturbance extremely difficult. I am critical that lessons do not appear to have been learned from earlier disturbances.鈥�

The report blamed much of the problem on the short timescale imposed on the project by the Home Office in 2000, which set a target of removing 30000 failed asylum seekers from the UK 2001-2002. This left less than a year to tender, design and build the detention centre near Bedford.

In the report, the Prison Service Construction Unit said: 鈥淭he contractor had been given a virtually impossible task, with buildings lacking in design development and the construction period being too short.鈥� However, Amey director Richard Entwistle told the investigation that Amey would not have signed up to the scheme if it had not considered it could be done.

An Amey spokesperson was unavailable for comment as 黑洞社区 went to press.