Dungavel House opened as an Immigration Removal Centre in 2001. It has capacity to hold 214 detainees,
14 of which are for women. Dungavel stopped detaining children in May 2010. It is located about five miles from Strathaven
in South Lanarkshire. It is managed by Group 4 Securicor on behalf of the Home Office.
Dungavel is in an isolated location. It is difficult to get to by public transport. Because
of this, SDV relies on visitors' own cars to travel to the centre twice a week, in groups of up to five, to visit detainees.
It takes about 50 minutes to drive to Dungavel from central Glasgow. New visitors will always do their first visits in
the company of more experienced visitors.
On arrival
at the centre, visitors are required to show photo ID at the main gate. They are then taken into a waiting area where they
are photgraphed and have their fingerprints electronically scanned. Staff take details of the detainees visitors wish to see,
search the visitors and take them through to the visits room. The visits room is a spacious room with easy chairs and
low coffee tables. Sometimes visitors sit and talk with just one detainee, on other occasions we sit together in a group.
SDV visitors visit on Monday and Thursday evenings
and occassional weekends. Most of our visitors live in Glasgow but some travel from other parts of Scotland to visit. We leave
Glasgow city centre at 6pm and usually get into the visit room between 7pm and 7.30pm. Visiting ends at 8.30pm and we are
usually back in Glasgow by 9.30pm.
