Visits/Staff Facilities and Car Park

Aim: To provide Staff and Visitor Facilities at HMP Glenochil in a building fit for the 21st Century.

Current visitor facilities at Glenochil were judged to be particularly basic. The SPS is trying to reduce re-offending and believes that quality visitor facilities can help achieve this aim by encouraging and maintaining prisoner and family contact in a positive environment.

To help the first time visitor, the car park layout, building orientation and entrance features were carefully considered. The car park puts visitors close to the entrance, which is itself highly visible from all parts of the car park. Unlike traditional prisons there is no locked front door to greet visitors. Instead they are able to come in, to a large reception area which has lots of natural light.

The ground floor is therefore dedicated to dealing with all pedestrian access to the prison. To make people welcome, the security at the entrance is more discreet and “softer”. Beyond this entrance area, however, the business of security and good order ensures that secure lines are incorporated into the building. This allows visitors to meet with prisoners on the first floor without compromising security.

The building has large north facing windows in certain rooms, taking advantage of the surrounding views of the Ochil hills. The “Open Visits”, in particular, has large windows that allow prisoner and visitor contact in a very pleasant, bright environment.

The top floor is dedicated to Staff Facilities and, again, large windows to the north get the best of the building’s natural setting.

The external elevations use quality textures block work, with brick, rainscreen and feature aluminium roof details. These materials and operatives in the building help to create a horizontal banding of form.

Construction work on the Staff & Visits Facility started March 2006 and was completed April 2007.