DUMFRIES Sheriff Court requires over £200,000 worth of maintenance work to bring the building to an ‘adequate standard’.
This figure was obtained by a from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS).
According to the freedom of information response, the SCTS insists that £220,000 of maintenance work is required at the Buccleuch Street court to convert a former library into an interview room, while money is also needed to convert a substation.
The Galloway and West Dumfries MSP, Finlay Carson has insisted the maintenance work is carried out quickly to ensure the buildings don’t fall into further disrepair.
He said: “Clearly the Scottish Government has been neglecting its duty towards maintaining court buildings, preferring instead to waste money on vanity projects.
“They cannot expect court staff, lawyers and the general public to have to put up with buildings that are simply not fit for purpose.
“These essential repairs need to be tackled now to ensure that the already enormous backlog of court cases doesn’t grow even larger.”
Meanwhile, a similar sum needs to be spent at Stranraer Sheriff Court on replacing the boiler system and survey work carried out into the building’s drainage system.
Overall, the cost of repairs across Scotland’s court buildings equates to almost the entire £8 million capital budget of the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service.
Scottish Conservatives Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Jamie Greene MSP, added : “The shocking scale of repair work required to keep our courts safe and habitable should set alarm bells ringing for the SNP Government.
“There are tens of thousands of trials outstanding in Scotland’s courts, leaving victims of crime waiting years for justice.
“This number could get even larger if the state of our courts is not addressed as a matter of urgency.”
