Three huge jails housing 2,500 inmates each are planned as part of an extra 10,500 prison places announced yesterday to cope with the rising number of offenders.

But even this huge £1.2 billion prison building programme may not be enough to meet projections that the jail population could hit more than 100,000 in seven years.

Ministers have been warned that by summer next year there may be a 3,000 shortfall in jail places, which would require “one or more contingency measures” to cope with demand.

Lord Carter of Coles, author of a report on demand for prison spaces published yesterday, said: “Demand for prison places will outstrip the rate of supply of prison places in the short, medium and long term unless immediate action is taken.”

The Government is planning to provide 20,000 jail spaces by 2014, Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, said as he published Lord Carter’s review.

The net increase in prison capacity will be about 15,000, once the three so-called Titan jails are built. Ministers hope to fulfil an idea first suggested seven years ago and close older jails containing 5,000 spaces.

One super jail is planned to be built by 2012 with a further two by 2014 but the review by Lord Carter admitted that there is no scope for substantial cost-effective new prison capacity before 2010.

The jails are expected to be in London, the West Midlands and the North West. Streamlined planning procedures should be used to overcome local opposition on the grounds that the jails are needed urgently, Lord Carter recommended.

His report said that the jails should be built using cost-effective designs that could deliver “staff savings”.

New technology could also boost effectiveness and efficiency including biometric scanning, barcoding and electronic door operation. Lord Carter admitted that the short-term measures aimed at easing the overcrowding crisis engulfing the prison system “may not offer the tax payer value for money” but were now needed just to maintain the integrity of the whole criminal justice system.

Short-term emergency measures to cope with record numbers in jail include converting former RAF Colt-ishall in Norfolk into a Category C jail, converting Wealstun open jail into a closed prison and considering using two prison ships. The current prison population is 81,455, including 177 held in police cells.

As The Times disclosed yesterday, a working party has been set up to consider creating a new Sentencing Commission that will create a framework aimed at matching sentences to prison space availability.

Prison reform groups criticised Lord Coles’ proposals. Paul Tidball, president of the Prison Governors’ Association, said: “We accept that greater economies could be found from a larger-scale prison but these have to be set against the costs which flow from the increased risk of lack of control.

“These can only work in high population centres or they will be the enemy of closeness to home.”

Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, described some of Lord Carter’s proposals as “zany”. “You cannot build your way out of the failing behemoth that is our prison system,” she said.

Nick Herbert, Shadow Justice Secretary, said that Lord Carter’s report was a “devastating indictment” of Labour’s management of the prisons system.

“For years we have been urging the Government to provide adequate prison capacity and with these additional places they are merely catching up with predicted demand,” he said.

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