APPROVING plans to close Bury Courthouse would make “absolutely no sense”, the leader of Bury Council has told the Government.

Responding to a Ministry of Justice consultation on the proposals in his capacity as the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s lead on police and crime, Cllr Mike Connolly said that closing courts in Bury, Oldham, Stockport and Trafford would ignore principles of the region’s devolution deal.

Bury Magistrates’ Court and County Court, in Tenters Street, were both been earmarked for closure in the consultation, which ended last month, with their workload potentially transferred nine miles away to Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court and Manchester County Court.

In the response, Cllr Connolly said: “We feel that the proposals set out in the consultation are extremely short sighted, focussing as they do on one single element of the justice system and ignoring the impact on other services and agencies.

“They also ignore the whole thrust of public service reform that we, in Greater Manchester, are implementing which is focussed on how agencies and partners can work together on a whole-system basis to ensure that services can be delivered better, more cost-effectively and with improved outcomes for our citizens.

“We are of the view that it makes absolutely no sense to move forward with proposals that are so limited in their scope.

“At a time of unprecedented austerity, it is essential that we look for reform that goes wider than single services and we cannot support proposals which will dramatically reduce the efficiency of many public services, that will shunt costs onto other agencies and which miss opportunities for achieving greater efficiencies from the public estate.”

The authority raised issues around travel times, police efficiency, the loss of local jobs, and a slowing down of the judicial process.

He added: “Collectively and individually we have a number of issues that give us cause for concern.

“Fair and speedy access to justice is one of the bedrocks of our country’s way of life.

"Fair justice is not just about buildings, it is about people being judged by those who have full access to the relevant facts and circumstances behind each case and it is our view that taking courts and cases away from the locality that they relate to can only be to the detriment of good justice.

“Asking people who are often at their most vulnerable to travel excessive distances into unfamiliar territory can only be to the detriment of good justice.”

Bury North MP David Nuttall twice questioned Courts Minister Shailesh Vara in the House of Commons last week over the cost of operating and maintain Bury Courthouse.

Mr Vara revealed that £527,980 was spent in operating costs last year, while maintenance costs dating back to 2010 have totalled £1,873,115.