The prison was given an Independent Review of Progress in July 2025, the full report can be read on the HM Inspectorate of Prisons website, just follow the links below. In their latest report the inspectors said:
HMP Kirkham is a category D open prison for adult men near Kirkham, Lancashire, run by HM Prison and Probation Service, holding 672 prisoners against an operational capacity of 699. A full inspection in September 2024 had rated safety Reasonably Good, and respect, purposeful activity and preparation for release all Not Sufficiently Good, each a decline from the 2018 inspection, the last full inspection to have taken place. This Independent Review of Progress, carried out in July 2025, checks progress against the concerns raised then rather than re-scoring the four healthy prison tests.
Inspectors found good progress on enrichment activity and time out of cell, and on release on temporary licence arrangements, where average approval time had been cut from 39 days to just seven under a restructured employment hub. New community-facing activities for men on temporary licence, including cycling groups and beach cleaning, had been introduced, and staff-prisoner relationships and public protection work had made reasonable progress.
Even so, inspectors found no meaningful progress on the continuing absence of in-cell telephones or on the impact of national overcrowding-management schemes, which had brought an influx of category C prisoners onto the site and which inspectors said undermined Kirkham’s ethos and purpose as an open prison. Living conditions remained substandard across most accommodation, with mould and rust still present in many billets, and drug positivity, already the highest in the open estate at the 2024 inspection at 25.3%, had risen further to an average of 34% in the six months before the review.
Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
September 2025
To read the full reports, go to the HM Inspectorate of Prisons website or follow the links below:
| Independent Review of Progress report, HM Inspectorate of Prisons review of progress at HMP Kirkham (28–30 July 2025, published 1 September 2025) | Inspection report (PDF), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Kirkham by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (9–19 September 2024, published 10 December 2024) |