MOVES are under way to ease overcrowding at one of the North-East's oldest jails, prison bosses revealed last night.

About 160 inmates are to be moved to other institutions from Durham Jail where prisoner numbers are exceeding capacity.

The announcement came as the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, was expected to criticise overcrowding in Britain's jails and call for courts to stop locking-up so many offenders.

Durham Prison, built in Victorian times, has 794 prisoners at its 670-capacity jail.

A Prison Service spokeswoman said: "When we are talking about overcrowding it means there are two people to a cell designed for one.

"The problem that Durham has in terms of overcrowding is that it is a local prison, which means there are lots of people there awaiting court, or coming in from courts.

"We are aware of the problem and every effort is being made to reduce overcrowding.

"At the moment we are in the process of reducing the population at Durham by a significant amount.

"Prisoners will be moved to other prisons where there is surplus capacity and we are also planning refurbishment work at Durham."

The region's other prisons, including Frankland Prison, near Durham, Full Sutton, at York, and Holme House, at Stockton, are operating below capacity.

Low Newton women's prison, near Durham City, is operating only slightly above its capacity of 215, with 219 prisoners.

Delivering the Prison Reform Trust annual lecture at the Law Society, in London, last night, Lord Woolf was expected to advocate the merits of community-based program-mes as an alternative in some cases to imprisonment.

Nacro, the crime reduction charity, said the Government should set a target to reduce the prison population in England and Wales to the European average