Chichester MP hoping to re-openof West Sussex's only court by end of 2026
Chichester Crown Court has been closed since 2018
Chichester's MP says she's making it her mission to fully re-open West Sussex's only crown court by the end of this year.
Jess Brown-Fuller says re-instating Chichester Crown Court would help fix a "broken court system."
The court closed in 2018, shifting its workload over to Lewes and Portsmouth, while the building operated as a Nightingale Court to help deal with pandemic backlog.
Most recent government statistics revealed that a backlog could hit 100,000 cases by 2028.
Brown-Fuller told Greatest Hits Radio that both defendants and victims involved in cases going to court now may not see a crown court case until as late as 2029.
"That is unacceptable for victims and survivors of any cases to not have an opportunity to have their case heard for three to four years," she continued.
"The way that we address that is by getting that court backlog down, by improving efficiencies, by improving the contracts of third party providers, and actually fixing the court so they don't have to be closed because the heating's not working, and also by reopening all of those courts that were closed under the Conservatives."
It comes after last month the government said it would be introducing non-jury trials and giving magistrates the power to give sentences of up to 18 months to cut wait times for a hearing.