It has been confirmed today that Stirling's HMP Cornton Vale will be closing to allow the construction of a new national women's prison.

More than half of the inmates of Scotland's only female prison will be relocated to HMP Polmont, near Falkirk over the summer as the first phase of plans to transform how Scotland deals with women in custody get underway.

The announcement was made by justice secretary Michael Matheson, who confirmed that the construction of the new prison in Cornton Vale is expected to begin in 2018, subject to financial and planning approvals.

He said: “This move is another positive step towards our ambitious new approach to transform the way we deal with women in custody. We must be smarter in our approaches so that we can help break the cycle of re-offending.

“Moving a large number of female prisoners from Cornton Vale to newer, improved facilities at Polmont will allow us to decommission parts of the prison and progress with our vision for a smaller, high-quality national prison and five community custody units across the country.

“We are able to include Polmont in our plans thanks to the success we’ve seen in reducing youth offending in Scotland, which is down 70 per cent over the last ten years. We hope to replicate this success amongst women offenders through the smarter approaches we are taking forward.”

The plan is to build a new, smaller prison that can accommodate 80 women, the five smaller custodial units would have spaces for 20 each and it is hoped that these will be operational by 2020.

Mr Matheson explained: “By housing these women in smaller, community bases units closer to their families, alongside providing additional support to address the underlying issues which fuel their crime such as drugs, alcohol or mental ill-health, we can stop them from committing further crimes in the future.

“It is totally unacceptable that we have the second highest female prison population in Northern Europe. This government continues to prioritise efforts to reduce the number of men and women serving custodial sentences.

“The actions we are taking are about tackling this problem head-on through smarter approaches which can reduce prison numbers in Scotland.”

Colin McConnell, chief executive of the Scottish Prison Service, added: “In parliament last year, [Mr Matheson], set out a ground-breaking vision for the care of women in our custody in Scotland. That vision also laid down a huge challenge to me and the Scottish Prison Service to respond in such a positive way that to deliver what he sought, our service would have to change too.

“The announcement today is a major step along the way to making the cabinet secretary’s vision a reality and strong evidence that the Scottish Prison Service is up for the challenge he has given us.

“Cornton Vale has been a serious concern for our service and for the justice system for far too long and it’s truly rewarding that with the government’s support and leadership we are now on the journey to seeing the back of it.

He said moving the women to the more modern Polmont prison “will in itself be a significant improvement”, not just for those who are moving, but also those who will remain at Cornton Vale for now.