Council offers to accommodate magistrates' court earmarked for closure

Kettering Borough Council is to approach the Courts Service about accommodating the town’s Magistrates’ Court – which faces the axe under Ministry of Justice proposals – in one of its buildings.

Kettering Court services the whole of the borough and parts of East Northamptonshire. It acts as the base for the Coroner’s Court and is the Centre for Youth Justice in north Northamptonshire.

The court is one of the 103 magistrates’ courts and 54 county courts designated for closure under MoJ plans put out to consultation in June. Under the proposals, the Kettering bench would be merged with the bench in Corby.

The ministry believes that the closure of Kettering Court would save £109,000 per annum, and remove a £15,000 capital commitment. The MoJ has claimed that the court has a 60% utilisation rate, and its target is 80%.

However, according to council papers, Kettering magistrates said their court was one of the busiest in the area with workloads increasing rather than decreasing. They expressed fears that the average gap between arrest and a case coming before the magistrates’ court would increase significantly if the court is closed.

In response, the council is proposing to invite the Courts Service to relocate both the magistrates’ court and the county court (which does not face closure) into the council’s estate by 2014. This would be “on terms which allow them to continue to provide a local justice service at a lower cost”.

The Magistrates’ Association nationally has already said it would support shared premises in order to preserve local court services.

A further alternative would be to co-locate the two courts into one building in Kettering.

The council paper warned that loss of the magistrates’ court service in Kettering would “damage the town centre, and provide inconvenience and cost to residents, businesses and public services in the borough”.

It added: “A further priority is to develop a joined up offer of public services in one location, to reap benefits for the customer in terms of simplifying and joining up services, as well as locating them in one place, but also in harvesting benefits from joined up ‘back office’ functions, shared support services and facilities and reduced overall costs in the public sector.

“A relocation of the courts service, in a way which makes better use of public service assets, offers all these benefits.”

Kettering’s proposals come after the leader of Kirklees Council earlier this month launched a powerful attack on the MoJ programme of court closures.

Cllr Mehboob Khan said that “what sounds simple on paper may lead to greater inefficiencies in practice with the result being more expensive and less effective justice”.