A Ministry of Justice consultation proposing the closure of 103 magistrates’ courts and 54 county courts has received a huge number of responses, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly told the House of Commons’ Justice Committee this week.

The minister said that the MoJ had received between 100 and 500 responses for each of the 16 regions being consulted on.

He said that the unusually high level of responses would be collated ‘before Christmas’ and a decision would be published in due course.

Djanogly said: ‘Closing the courts is not just a question of bricks and mortar. Justice has not kept pace with the rest of society’s technology. We need fit-for-purpose courts where more use is made of modern aids, such as teleconferencing and videos.’

He told the committee that solicitors could avoid travelling long distances by giving more advice over the telephone. He said: ‘They can benefit from econo­mies of scale if they arrange multiple cases for the same day.

‘We have moved away from the Victorian idea that there should be a court in every town. Closing a court is not like closing a post office, because most people don’t go to court often. Most people drive these days, too – research shows that only 20% of people travel to court by public transport,’ he said.

The Magistrates Association said it had serious concerns about the proposed closures, which it said run counter to the coalition agreement on decentralisation of services and would save only a ‘tiny fraction’ of the MoJ’s budget.