Holloway prison has been sold to a housing association and is expected to provide 1,000 homes, the majority of which will be affordable, it has been announced.
The women’s prison in north London, which once housed Myra Hindley and closed in 2016, was sold to the housing association Peabody for £81.5m on Friday.
Peabody said that at least 60% of the 1,000 homes will be “genuinely affordable”.
Of these, 70% will be social rent, which are pegged to local incomes to keep them affordable. The rest will either be for sale through shared ownership or London Living Rent – a scheme offering three-year tenancies to middle-income earners who are given the option to buy the property.
Construction on the 10-acre site is expected to begin in 2022 and should be completed by 2026, and include a women’s centre, green spaces and play areas.
The sale was partially funded by a £42m loan from the Mayor’s Land Fund. Sadiq Khan said: “Our groundbreaking loan to Peabody means the majority of new homes on this site will be genuinely affordable.”
The London mayor added: “This shows what is possible on public land. We’ve been able to do this even with the limited powers we currently have.”
The money will provide a windfall for the Ministry of Justice, which has been trying to sell the site since the prison closed. The prisons minister, Rory Stewart, said the money will help “replace ageing prisons with modern, purpose-built establishments”.
Jeremy Corbyn, whose constituency includes the site, welcomed the sale, saying: “For too long private developers had free rein to buy up public land and build properties that are completely unaffordable for the local community. But under a Labour mayor and Labour council, the former Holloway prison site will include 600 social and genuinely affordable homes.”
Holloway prison was the biggest women’s jail in western Europe, and was shut after being deemed inadequate. Inmates were transferred to Downview prison, in Sutton, and Bronzefield prison in Surrey in 2016.
At the time of its closure, the then justice secretary, Michael Gove, said the prison’s condition did not provide the best environment for the rehabilitation of offenders.
Holloway prison became England’s first women’s prison in 1902 and hundreds of suffragettes were imprisoned there.
