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Quote:
The lord chief justice called for a ‘proper strategy’ to ensure courts are built only when necessary and more use is made of community facilities.
‘Wasteful planning is one of the thing that hang round our necks. We have built buildings that are too elaborate and therefore shut courts to justify the return on capital – this has not been a properly thought through system.
‘We have the opportunity now to deliver justice much more in the way we might have done 40 years ago, in smaller non-purpose-built buildings but linked with modern technology.’
End quote.

Well, how does this fit with the 'National Estate Strategy' set out in the June 2010 consultations prior to the decimation of local courts by closing so many of them. That so-called strategy claimed to comprise the following principles (inter alia):
* have specialist facilities in large strategic locations only;
* move towards larger courts.

Still, that was back in 2010 when the coalition government was fresh and new, and Jonathan '(apparent) conflict of interest' Djanogly was the minister at the 'Ministry of (No) Justice'.

So now the LCJ says that strategy was 'not properly thought through' - as so many of us said at the time but were ignored - and we are now to go back to courts in broom cupboards but with a broadband connection. The 'joined-up thinking' seems to last all of 5 minutes.

The dull thud you can hear in the background is me banging my head against the wall. When will the highly paid people at the top learn to listen to those who actually work in the system on the ground day by day? This is of course a rhetorical question.