The Territory Government has scrapped its plans to build a new youth justice facility at Pinelands to replace the notorious Don Dale Detention Centre

THE Territory Government has scrapped its plans to build a new youth justice facility at Pinelands to replace the notorious Don Dale Detention Centre.

THE Territory Government has scrapped its plans to build a new youth justice facility at Pinelands to replace the notorious Don Dale Detention Centre.

Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler and Minister for Territory Families Dale Wakefield will today announce the controversial plan to build the $70 million facility in Palmerston’s industrial area has been shelved.

It’s understood the Government will now consider walking away from plans to build any new facility as it seeks to rein in spending to deal with its Budget crisis.

The Government had committed to building a new youth justice facility following recommendations from the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the NT.

The notorious Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.

But its decision to build the new centre at Pinelands — which was announced without any consultation — caused widespread community anger.

Pinelands business owners had threatened the Government with legal action if it went ahead with the move and hundreds of people attended community meetings voicing their concerns about the plan.

It’s understood the Government is now considering putting plans for a new facility on ice and banking the savings, with a vastly reduced amount of money instead to be spent either upgrading the existing youth justice facilities at Berrimah or building a far more modest new centre.

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While Pinelands businesses will welcome the decision, it is likely to anger youth justice advocates who have long argued for the closure of Don Dale.

The Royal Commission’s final report — delivered in November 2017 — recommended the immediate closure of Don Dale’s high security unit and a plan for closing the facility altogether to be in place by February 2018.

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Youth detainees have been held at the facility — the former Berrimah adult prison — since former corrections minister John Elferink closed the old Don Dale Detention Centre in August 2014 after tear gas was used to subdue a group of rioting detainees. Those detainees had been held in the centre’s notorious Behavioural Management Unit for 17 days before the incident, which eventually helped spark the Royal Commission after footage of the tear gassing was broadcast on the ABC’s Four Corners program.

While the Royal Commission deemed the current site unfit for purpose, a 2015 review by NSW juvenile justice expert Michael Vita found the facility could be appropriate if certain renovations and upgrades were made.

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“In general, Berrimah YDC offers much more variety and infrastructure than the previous Don Dale,” he wrote in his report.

“It could quite easily be a medium-term possibility as a youth detention precinct with prospects for expansion.”

Keeping youth detainees at Berrimah, however, is likely to upset developer Halikos. It lodged a legal objection last year when the Government was planning to build a new youth justice centre at Berrimah, which is next door to its Northcrest housing development.

The Government later walked away from that plan and announced the Pinelands site, but denied this had anything to do with Halikos’s objection.