A NEW mental health unit at Runwell Hospital will still go ahead despite a new prison being approved there.

Bosses at the South Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust said current building work on the new unit, to house new forensic and low security wards, will continue.

Originally the facility was planned to be built on the hospital site in Runwell Road, Wickford, alongside 600 new homes and a primary school.

But on Monday, Justice Minister Jack Straw revealed the site had now been chosen to house one of five new jails in England and Wales, holding up to 1,500 prisoners.

The new unit will now stand alongside the new prison.

Yet politicians and residents are still reeling about the prison plan.

Rayleigh Tory MP Mark Francois, whose constituency includes Runwell, said the announcement came “out of the blue”.

He said: “I have never been consulted about this at all and neither, as far as I know, have any of my constituents.

“I was present for the statement on Monday and immediately afterwards I caught up with both Jack Straw and the prisons minister, David Hanson, to protest at how this has been handled.

“I took the opportunity to explain directly to the two ministers that the history surrounding the old Runwell Hospital site is very complicated and that – after many years of debate – the local community were now expecting the new mental health unit to be built on the site, alongside plans for some 600 homes and a new primary school.

“They were not expecting a prison instead.”