Three years of overcrowding impacting prisoners at HMP Coldingley

HMP Coldingley is a training and resettlement prison, with a remit to help prisoners develop new skills and be better prepared for release into the community. In its 2024-25 annual report (published 30 September 2025) the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) reports on how the national capacity crisis has led to overcrowding, which has negatively affected the regime at Coldingley, making it difficult for the prison to fulfil its brief. The constant churn of prisoners has also impacted the strong sense of community previously found at Coldingley.

The Board has reported:

• An increase in prisoners who are unsuitable for placement at Coldingley. This includes men not yet ready for this type of prison, men with little time left to serve, and men from long distances away, separating them from the stabilising influence of home and family. These can all be distressing factors for prisoners and contribute to an unsettled atmosphere in the prison.
• More men arriving with only a few weeks to serve which has an impact on attendance at purposeful activity. These men have too little time to take advantage of the learning opportunities of a training prison and the number of prisoners engaged in higher level education has dropped this reporting year.
• Widespread use of illicit substances, with prisoners regularly telling the Board how readily available drugs are. Random drug testing was re-introduced during the reporting year and the number of positive results approached 50% in most months.
• Over one third of prisoners continuing to live in cells with no sink or toilet, with the final round of refurbishment not planned to start until late 2027.

However, the Board is also pleased to report that:

• The prison is looking cleaner than it has been for many years. The wings have been improved as prisoners, with a good amount of time out of cell, have organised themselves and taken more pride in the state of their landings. The outside grounds are also much tidier, again largely down to the efforts of prisoners.
• The extreme rate of staff attrition seen in the last reporting year has eased and prisoners have benefitted from the recent better staffing levels.

IMB Coldingley said:

“The ever-increasing churn of prisoners is making it so much harder for the prison to be run in the way and for the purposes it was intended, and in the end the wider community suffers.

It is too easy for drugs to enter this prison. Staff have got a big job on their hands reducing the ingress of illicit substances. If they succeed and the planned refurbishment work starts soon, then this could still be a decent resettlement and training prison.”