Ms Angela Denning:

The accommodation stratey is pretty much a moveable feast. The Courts Service board has decided that priority will be given to county town venues which will all be refurbished. The next question that arises is that if a significant amount of money is spent in refurbishing a county town venue, does one then need three or four smaller District Court venues in the same county. There is a broad spectrum of criteria used by the board. Recently, we had work done by consultants in looking at the demographics, geographical locations, the distance between courthouses, the availability of cells, the condition of courthouses, courthouse ownership, the caseload in a particular area, security, health and safety issues and the capital cost of refurbishing a courthouse. All of these are taken into consideration before a decision is made to either close or refurbish a venue.