NEWS that Bolton's new magistrates court building may be suspended because of a Government block on public spending has disturbing implications for the administration of local justice.

It is all very well for politicians to fulminate at party conferences about tough new punishment for criminals, but for this to happen there must be a proper place in which legal machinery can function efficiently and fairly.

That the present magistrates court building in Le Mans Crescent is ill-suited for such a role is lamentably obvious.

The building may have been adequate in the 1930s, when crime figures were a fraction of the present-day statistics. Today, it is overcrowded, comfortless and lacking in decent facilities. Defendants must wait cheek-to-jowl with witnesses before their cases are heard, while the smaller court rooms are no bigger than the average sitting room.

If work on the new Cheadle Square building does not start as originally scheduled at the end of the month, justice will suffer and the thunderous law and order preaching of politicians will be exposed as rhetoric without substance.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.