NINE prisons will be built with cash made from closing Victorian jails and selling off their “prime inner-city real estate” to make way for 3,000 homes, ministers said yesterday.

Five are expected to be opened by 2020, in addition to a new prison being built in Wrexham and the expansion of HMP Stocken in Rutland and G4S-run HMP Rye Hill in Warwickshire, Chancellor George Osborne and Justice Secretary Michael Gove announced before a trip to Victorian-era Brixton Prison.

But Howard League for Penal Reform chief executive warned the plan would push prison number “ever upwards” as similar schemes had done in the past.

“There is a very real risk that these new jails fill up before any old prison ever gets closed.”

The Ministry of Justice said it was not releasing details of the planned locations of new prisons at this stage.