According to a council planning officer report, Cromhall Parish Council is objecting to the plans, on the grounds it would increase the inmate population at the prison “with a history of absconds”, raising fears the local community faces a greater risk of crime.
However no local residents commented on a public consultation about the planned expansion.
In December the government said it was pressing ahead with “the biggest jail expansion since the Victorian era”.
HMP Leyhill was previously a wartime hospital, before opening as a prison in 1946. The prison was then rebuilt in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
There is currently a capacity of around 500 inmates, but over the next few years this could gradually increase to more than 800.