CHRISTCHURCH COURTS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 149, 19 March 1936, Page 16

CHRISTCHURCH COURTS

Plan For New Building While plans are being discussed for an entirely new Magistrate’s Court building for Christchurch, departmental officers are preparing details of minor alterations to a room in the vacant Lands and Deeds Office for use as tin auxiliary courtroom. There has been no definite decision, so far, to build a new courthouse, but plans are being considered in Wellington. In the meantime occasional congestion has become so bad that this auxiliary room will be made available for use when the two present courtrooms are engaged and other business arises. For many months now there have been occasions when the demand on the courtrooms has been so heavy that magistrates have had to take cases in their own rooms, with inevitable congestion and inconvenience. The new room will be in the stone building contiguous to the old Provincial Council Chambers, formerly used by the Lands and Deeds Office. The courtroom will have access from Armagh Street, just past the bridge over the Avon, and wilt be fitted up within the next month with the necessary furniture, with witness box, prisoners’ box, and magistrate’s bench included. The occupation of the former Lands and Deeds block will also make possible another important change—the transfer to that building of the entire Civil Court staff with most of their records. This staff, now housed In the present magistrate’s court building, has been badly inconvenienced because of congested space, and the change is expected to make for better working for that staff and others remaining in the old building. The current records of the civil court staff will also be taken over, and the strongrooms used by the Lands and Deeds Office will now house the records of the city’s civil litigation. Officials emphasise that the decision to occupy the old buildings for an auxiliary court does not b.v any means indicate that plans for an en tirely new building have been shelved. It appears that the plan finding most favour witli the authorities will be to build a new block spanning the vac ant section between the two existing buildings—Magistrate’s Court ano Supreme Court, with the administrative offices for both courts in the same building. Probably the demolition of the present Magistrate’s Court offices would follow, and after that the erection on that site of new courtrooms. This plan would give tlie new building a long frontage on tlie river, easily accessible to the public, and probably offering architectural advantages which could not be overlooked.