Dungavel House opened as an Immigration Removal Centre in 2001. It has capacity to hold 194 detainees
- men women and children. 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
40 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. Most of our visitors live in Glasgow but some travel
from other parts of Scotland to visit. We leave Glasgow city centre at around 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.
