Cornton Vale, which serves West Dunbartonshire and Argyll and Bute and was formerly Scotland’s only women’s prison, will close early in the new year.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) also confirmed HMP & YOI Stirling, which is being built on the same site, is due to open in the summer of 2023.

It will be the third new, purpose-built facility for women following the openings this year of the Bella unit in Dundee and the Lilias unit in Glasgow.

The move follows a report in 2012 by former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini.

It recommended the demolition of Cornton Vale, which was built in 1975, and paved the way for its replacement with smaller Community Custody Units (CCUs).

The CCU’s, the first of their kind anywhere in the UK, are designed to recognise the needs of women in custody and the fact that their backgrounds often involve adversity and trauma.

SPS chief executive Teresa Medhurst described the new development as an “exciting moment”.

She added: “This facility, along with our CCUs, will help give women in our care the best possible chance of a successful rehabilitation and safe, eventual, return to our communities.

“There is a lot of hard work ahead, but we are determined to deliver for those in our care, for the communities we serve, and for wider Scotland.”

Justice Secretary Keith Brown, right,  said the Scottish government was committed to a “modern and fit-for-purpose prison estate with a focus on rehabilitation”.

He added that the plan to transform the approach to women in custody was part of a wider £600m move to improve Scotland’s custodial estate.

Mr Brown said: “The new community custody units, which opened this year in Dundee and Glasgow represent a step change in how Scotland supports women in custody.

“I am pleased that SPS are now reaching this significant milestone.”

Cornton Vale prisoners were transferred to HMP Polmont, near Falkirk, before the beginning of demolition work at the site in 2017.