Richard Chapman raises the alarm over county court counter closures
The counters of the county courts around England and Wales remain open all hours that the courts are open. The 2 April 2012 deadline, from when it was threatened that the counters would be closed, save for two hours a day, has come and gone. The extended consultation period has also come and gone. During that period, more than 300 responses were submitted, among which was the detailed response prepared by the Association of HM District Judges.
We viewed the proposed counter closure programme with alarm for a variety of reasons.
Workable safeguards
There must be a recognition that in order to make the county court system more efficient and to save costs that have to be saved, everyone involved will have to adapt to new procedures—HMCTS, county court users including litigants and legal representatives, and the judiciary. However, workable safeguards must be established for those court users who will struggle with what we are left with.
When I was articled back in the 1960s, I used to go to the counter
