£27,000 annual bill for empty Shropshire court

Oswestry Magistrates Court and County Court is incurring costs of more than £2,000 a month just to keep it in a good state of repair while it awaits a buyer.

The court building in Holbache Road closed in October 2011 under a national reform of the courts system, but is one of 13 courts across England which has not been sold yet.

Shailesh Vara, the Secretary of State for Justice, revealed the figures in response to a question by shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter.

Mr Vara said Oswestry's court building currently costs £2,269 a month to maintain. This includes rates, fuel and utilities, facilities management, telephony and "other property costs".

"The disposal of surplus property assets is dependent on a number of factors, such as the market, potential future use, location and the fact that some are occupied in part by the police and local authorities which also make disposal difficult," he said.

"Five of the closed court buildings which have not been disposed of are either under offer or on the market.

"Of those which have not yet been brought to the market, four court buildings have shared locations with the police which means the future of the building is tied in with the police station, one has a flying freehold issue and the other three were closed recently.

"We are working on bringing all of them to the market as soon as possible.

"There are temporary costs associated with making sure unused buildings are kept secure, protecting the fabric of the building and property rates payable to local councils.

"In addition, decommissioning the buildings to make them ready for sale results in some costs which cannot be disaggregated from the overall running costs. However, these are significantly lower than the costs of running the courts when open."

He added: "On average the estates running costs alone for these courts are now more than £4,000 lower per month, almost £50,000 less a year, than when the courts were open."

Mr Vara added that 80 of the courts closed under the Court Estate Reform Programme have been sold, raising £49.18 million.

The other courts still on the Government's books are in Alton, Bracknell, Cirencester, Coleford, Keighley, Knutsford, Liverpool, Lyndhurst, Pontefract, Spalding, Totnes and Towcester. The combined current maintenance costs of the courts is £40,618 per month, or £478,146 per year.

In Shropshire, Market Drayton's court building in Cheshire Street, which closed in April 2011, has recently been taken over by call centre Will Associates, creating 40 jobs.

Ludlow's court closed in March 2011. The building was leased by the Ministry of Justice rather than owned outright, and was handed back to the leaseholder.

Bridgnorth Magistrates Court closed in 2005 when it merged with Telford to form Telford and Bridgnorth local justice area.