A smooth transition is promised when the island’s old bail hostel is replaced by a new residential facility for offenders.

Tromode House replaces the bail hostel at David Gray House which is owned and operated by the Salvation Army, in partnership with the Probation Service, since 1994.

The new Community Rehabilitation Centre, which will be run directly by the Probation Service, is due to open this autumn.

It will offer an expanded programme of focused rehabilitation work designed to reduce offending and protect the public.

David Gray House requires extensive maintenance work and the Salvation Army is to decommission the probation hostel after its contract ends on September 30.

Malcolm Page, the charity’s assistant territorial director of homelessness services, said: ’We would like to thank our dedicated staff team who fully engaged with the process and understood the final outcomes to close the service.

’We will make every effort to redeploy our staff teams to other vacancies within our organisation.’

He said the close partnership with the Prison and Probation Service will continue as they move towards shutting David Gray House, ’ensuring an effective handover and transition to the new service for the residents’.

Tromode House, a government-owned property previously used as a children’s home, has been refurbished to accommodate 12 male and female residents - compared to nine at David Gray House.

The facility comprises a lounge, bathrooms, kitchens and catering facilities alongside meeting rooms and office space.

It will provide semi-secure accommodation for offenders on community court orders, those on bail awaiting sentence and ex-offenders following their release from prison on licence.

In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs said Tromode House will operate a ’structured regime’ designed to address offending behaviour and support rehabilitation into the community, the aim being to ’help people reintegrate into and contribute to society’.

Residents will be subject to an overnight curfew and probation management say they will deal with any failures to comply with the centre’s rules ’robustly’.

This can mean re-calling offenders subject to licence back to prison or returning those in breach of their Community Orders to the courts.

Home Affairs Minister Bill Malarkey said: ’Our new approach will ensure offenders have an appropriate place to live whilst under supervision or reintegrating back into the community.

’Tromode House lent itself to conversion to provide suitable accommodation for offenders, negating the need to build a costly new facility.

Cost is not a factor in the decision to close David Gray House, the Minister said - this was about providing better support, more programmes and more bed spaces.

He explained: ’Providing a replacement was driven by a number of factors, among them a pressing need to increase bed spaces to fulfil a commitment to keep more prisoners from custodial sentences and better support them before sentence and on release.’