Temporary nightingale courts set up in Wolverhampton hotel and Telford town centre to stay open until 2023
Several temporary courts set up to cope with the backlog of court cases during the Covid-19 pandemic will stay open for another year.
Nightingale courts in Wolverhampton, Telford and Birmingham are set to stay open for another year.
It means more planned events at the Park Hall Hotel in Wolverhampton will be cancelled while the Ministry of Justice continues to use the hotel's ballroom.
Telford's court is in the town's former county court building.
The MoJ is planning to close 11 of the temporary courts within weeks but keep 12 others open for another year.
Temporary courts set up to cope with the backlog of court cases during the Covid-19 pandemic in Middlesbrough, Peterborough, Nottingham, Warwick, Manchester, Liverpool, Bolton, Chester and Winchester are all due to be shut down at the end of the month.
Others in Telford, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Maidstone, Chichester, Leeds, Swansea, Cirencester and Fleetwood will all remain open until March 2023 as part of efforts to reduce the number of outstanding court cases waiting to be dealt with.
Brides-to-be in Wolverhampton have been left frantically rearranging vendors, such as DJs and videographers, with some struggling to find a new venue for their required dates.
Official figures show that in the period October to December 2021 Wolverhampton Crown Court had a case backlog of 1,163; and Stafford Crown Court 436.
Magistrates courts in Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley had a combined case backlog of 2,485 for the same period. While Staffordshire magistrates courts including Cannock had a combined backlog of 7,795 cases.
Ministry of Justice data showws there were 1,163 outstanding cases at Wolverhampton Crown Court at the end of September last year – up from 989 at the same point in 2020.
In the period October 2020 and September 2021 the Midlands permanent crown court estate and Nightingales Courts have jointly disposed of 15,128 cases.
By the end of June 2021 figures showed there were record highs of nearly 61,000 outstanding crown court cases and more than 364,000 in magistrates’ courts nationally.
However, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said that 11 other so-called nightingale courts will be closed within the next few weeks.
Justice minister James Cartlidge said: “Nightingale courts continue to be a valuable weapon in the fight against the pandemic’s unprecedented impact on our courts, providing temporary extra capacity.
“Combined with other measures – such as removing the cap on crown court sitting days, more use of remote hearings, and increasing magistrate sentencing powers – we are beginning to see the backlog drop so victims can get the speedier justice they deserve.”
Stafford Nightingale Court, in the Shire Hall, closed last June.
