POLICE stations in Greater Manchester including those in Bolton could be used be receive prisoners from jails which are "bursting at the seams".
The Prison Service has announced that, for the first time in seven years, it has been forced to use spare police cells to house inmates.
More than 1,000 cells have been set aside in the West Midlands and West Yorkshire as the number of prisoners in England and Wales climbed to an all-time high of 71,480.
A similar situation could arise in Greater Manchester, a Prison Service spokesman has admitted.
She said: " At the moment we are concentrating on Yorkshire and the Midlands but it is possible cells in Greater Manchester could be used."
The new prison population total is just 173 places short of the Prison Service's "useable capacity" of 64,000.
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