Further courts could face axe

A new report about magistrates' courts in the county has been published following an in-depth inspection carried out in the summer.

And, even though the number of courthouses in the county has already been cut significantly, the report claimed that most of those remaining were still under-used.

In recent years, a number of the area's courts have been closed during a series of slimming down exercises. They include Ripon, Malton, Bedale, Stokesley, Easingwold, Thirsk and Leyburn among others.

It leaves nine courthouses in the North Yorkshire Magistrates' Courts Committee (MCC) area - in Harrogate, Northallerton, Scarborough, Skipton, Selby, York, Pickering, Richmond and Whitby.

They, in turn, have 21 courtrooms regularly in use, but the report from the Magistrates' Courts Service Inspectorate concluded that there was still evidence of significant over capacity.

The chief inspector, Kit Chivers, said: "In 1999, only two courtrooms came close to being used for 1,000 hours - courts one and two at York - and 14 courtrooms were used for less than 500 hours."

He admitted that the largely rural nature of the area meant a service had to be provided at a relatively large number of sites.

However, he added: "At the same time, it is clear that the operation of nine small courthouses is having a negative impact on the efficient deployment of resources, by both the MCC and the other criminal justice agencies."

The inflexibility of small courthouses in relation to larger court centres also had an impact on performance, said Mr Chivers.

He said: "The MCC will need to explore all elements fully during the forthcoming accommodation review in order to ensure that an appropriate balance has been struck between the provision of a local service and the efficient conduct of business."

In the past year, the North Yorkshire MCC dealt with 142,510 cases. It employs 141 staff and has 386 sitting magistrates