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Courts Service Estate

There is clearly a case for making savings where courts are close together or little used. However, why have Ministers taken relatively little account of the representations of the Lord Chief Justice, particularly on the Courts Service in what he described as vast rural areas, such as Alnwick and Tynedale in Northumberland and places elsewhere in the country? Will benches not find it necessary—at least sometimes—to go out to parts of their areas, possibly even to hear cases in places where they are still courthouses, given that they cannot be sold and are still public property?