Enough land acquired at Bishop Street to allow development of modern court service at historic complex

Transcript

00:00Minister, I had previously asked in relation to the Derry Courthouse,

00:04and obviously, as you had mentioned, whereby there is the potential of the additional extension

00:08and the refurb. Can I ask when we would expect any firm timelines or resourcing commitments,

00:14given the ongoing need to ensure adequate access to a modern justice system in the north-west?

00:19Well, as the Member will know, initially our thoughts were that we would not be able to

00:23provide that at the current Bishop Street location, simply due to the constraint nature

00:27of the site and the listing of that building. The plan had been to provide a new facility

00:33for the north-west. However, fortuitously, we have now been able to obtain enough land

00:38beside the Courthouse to allow us to reconfigure business, so that we should be able to provide

00:42that kind of modern facility. It is still at early stages, but I will be quick to let

00:47the Member know once we have a firmer set of propositions. Again, it is part of the

00:53overall estate strategy that we have to work our way through. There are a number of our

00:57court buildings that are old, but are grade 1 and grade 2 listed and therefore need to

01:02be refurbished. There are a number of others where we have parts of the court estate distributed

01:07into accommodation that we have to pay for, while we have accommodation that is deteriorating

01:12rapidly through lack of use. What we need to do is look at the whole strategy to make

01:16sure that we make best use of the buildings we have, that those that are genuinely historic

01:21are maintained properly and, crucially, that we are able to maintain a justice system

01:26that works in tandem with the estate to provide people with the best possible service.