STAFF at Northallerton's remand centre could be forgiven for wondering what's going on at present. Residents of the county town also may be mystified by the continuing rumours and suggestions that its future in the town is in doubt.

Staff have a very obvious interest in the issue, namely their future employment. But residents and those who just pass through must wonder why they are having to endure the current traffic delays if the Home Office is actively considering closing it down, as has been suggested in the most recent report of the prison's independent board of visitors.

Expensive re-building of the centre's outside wall is now in its eighth week and the work is behind schedule. The temper of townspeople will not be improved by the traffic diversions continuing much beyond the original 12 weeks envisaged.

Temporary traffic problems put aside for a moment, the uncertainty about the centre's future is of serious concern for the staff, both prison officers and the administrative support workers.

It cannot be conducive to a good working atmosphere in a prison which has had its problems in recent years.

Some of those problems are to do with the nature of the prison's Victorian buildings - it is the country's oldest purpose-built jail with parts dating back to 1783 - and the inability to expand on its cramped town-centre site.

That site is valuable, given its central position, and the sale of it would go some way to paying for the cost of a new building elsewhere. No doubt that is an issue being pondered in the Home Office as it conducts its review.

In today's D&S, the prison's outgoing governor attempts to reassure his staff and the town that there is a future for the establishment.

Townsfolk and the staff may take his words as sufficient proof that the prison is to stay on its present site. It would help matters enormously if Governor Appleton's chiefs at the Home Office would make an unequivocal statement about the remand centre - sooner rather than later.