HMP Styal to house first Clink restaurant in women's prison

The charity runs restaurants in male prisons in Brixton, Cardiff and Sutton

The first public restaurant to be established in a UK women's prison is to open in Cheshire.

The eatery, designed to help improve ex-offenders' employment prospects, will open at HMP Styal in 2015.

Governor John Hewitson said it would let people "see first-hand how we're helping to prepare women for release".

It will be the fourth such establishment set up by the Prison Service and the charity Clink. The other three are in male prisons.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said the restaurant would allow inmates to "gain food preparation, food service and cleaning City and Guilds NVQ qualifications", as well as experience working within a real business.

Clink's chief executive Chris Moore said opening at Styal meant the charity could "increase our training efforts to continue to bridge the skills gap in the hospitality industry" and hopefully "continue seeing a decrease in reoffending rates with support from businesses and the public".

The restaurant at HMP Styal will be the first opened in a women's prison

The charity has already successfully opened restaurants at male prisons in Brixton, Cardiff and Sutton.

It also runs a garden project at HMP Send in Surrey, which provides produce for some of the restaurants.