UP TO 100 of Britain's most dangerous teenage girls will be housed in a new secure unit at Flockton's jail.
The special wing at New Hall prison is to be built under an urgent, high-level Government scheme to house "high risk" juveniles.
Wakefield Council planning chiefs approved the move on Friday.
A Home Office report said the new unit was designed to meet the needs of up to 100 female juvenile "trainees" who are seen by the courts as posing a significant risk to their communities.
The new wing is designed to improve the prison regime for young inmates by providing specialist support.
A two-storey building is expected to house 26 inmates. It will be built on farmland belonging to the prison.
New Hall was chosen over the only other possible northern site, Low Newton in Durham, because of land availability and easier motorway access.
New Hall was originally used as a satellite prison for top-security Wakefield jail.
In 1961, it started to be used to hold young male offenders before being changed to hold women prisoners only in 1987.
Last month, New Hall was named and shamed as having one of the worst jail suicide rates in the country.
Four women are believed to have taken their lives at the jail in the past four months.
A demonstration was held outside the prison last week after the death of Victoria Robinson, 26, who was found hanged in her cell this month.
