The New South Wales (NSW) government has announced plans to develop a new prison through a public private partnership (PPP) project at Grafton, Australia.

The new facilities will be located on a greenfield site at Grafton, on the state's north coast. The prison would accommodate 600 prisoners and it would employ 200 prison officers.

The project is expected to be operational by 2019.

The NSW government has also announced plans to expand the old  Sydney's Parklea jail, which currently houses 820 male prisoners in Sydney's north-west. It is expected that the facilities will be expanded to house an extra 400 inmates by 2018.

According to Deputy Premier and Justice Minister Troy Grant, state's prison population was reaching capacity at about 11,600, and a record A$1.2 billion (US$927 million) would be included in next state budget to expand and upgrade prisons.

In March this year we published that BBGI entered into a share and unit sale agreement with Commonwealth Investments Pty Limited to acquire the remaining 50% equity interest in the Northern Territory Secure Facilities PPP Project (NTSF) in Australia. The NTSF, a new 1,000 bed correctional facility, is located near Darwin. NTSF became operational in 2014.