Thameside prison set for £50m expansion

Skanska, a contractor with a serious experience in the refurbishment of secured facilities, has just submitted plans for extending the Thameside prison in south east London. Should these plans go through, the prison's capacity will be extended by around a quarter.

According to a news report, the contractor, who rebuilt the former Belmarsh West prison under a PFI deal last year, plans to build a new house block containing 216 new cells at the Category B prison. The new four storey L-shaped block together with a new industries building and basketball court will see the demolition of existing works departments for neighbouring Belmarsh men's prison.

In order to allow for a very good level of security during the refurbishment works, installing a solid and reliable visitor and contractor monitoring solution is very important, and this is exactly where Tensor's Prison Pass solution will prove its worth.

Prison Pass is a low cost, easy to install, computer based pass system for registering each visitor, both on and off site, that will allow HM Prison Service Officers to quickly check the identity and monitor the movements of visitors.

The system allows the pre-booking of legal representatives, contractors and inmate visitors with maximum speed and minimum fuss. Furthermore, it allows a photograph taken by a digital or eyeball camera to be printed on a bar-coded pass using a high speed printer so each visitor is easily identified, while, at controlled monitor points, the visitor pass badge is simply swiped and a high quality digital image appears to the HM Prison Service Officers, thus verifying that the correct person is passing through.

Biometrics can also be added to the mix, Tensor's range of dermal fingerprint reading technology giving increased accuracy and reliability and being a very good solution when irrefutable proof of identity is required.

Additionally, Tensor can offer various financing and rental packages to both private and public sector organisations who wish to install our products, but if you want to find out more on this topic, then just contact our dedicated product team or Book a Demo.