The senior presiding judge for England and Wales has criticised the government’s plans to close 157 courts, in a consultation response intended to reflect the views of many judges and ­magistrates.

Lord Justice Goldring (pictured) said he was ‘particularly concerned’ about the impact of the proposed closures on access to family justice.

‘I am aware that family work has not been considered as part of the consultation exercise; I would urge consideration of this before any plans to close family centres are implemented,’ he said.

Goldring said there had been a significant increase in the workload of the Family Proceedings Court, which was likely to be sustained, and which must be reflected in the closure programme.

He added: ‘Where family proceedings courts do close, it is vital that the work is transferred to a suitable environment, rather than simply to the nearest criminal courtroom. It is important to keep those involved in family proceedings, especially children, separate from those involved in criminal proceedings.’

More widely, Goldring said there were ‘significant errors’ in the consultation papers. For example, the consultation put forward the closure of Abergavenny Magistrates’ Court on the basis that it had not been used since 1999, but Goldring noted that the court had recently been refurbished and reopened in July 2010.

The judge added that the consultation had not fully considered the impact that the proposals will have on the time taken for people to get to court.

‘Many users already have journey times of an hour to their local court, which could easily be doubled were they to have to travel to the suggested court,’ he said. ‘In a significant number of examples, court users would face journey times leaving many unable to arrive at court before 10am or return home after 4pm.’

Goldring said the consultation lacked real detail in relation to court utilisation figures, and warned that the increased workloads of the remaining courts could cause delay.

In the foreword to Goldring’s response, Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge acknowledged that there was ‘scant’ justification for keeping open some courts that no longer served their communities, but he said some of the assumptions in the consultation were ‘open to question’.

Judge said: ‘It is obvious that a number of courts in different parts of England and Wales no longer fulfil any sufficiently valuable public purpose. In some cases their location reflects the needs of earlier generations and they are under-utilised. In others, the facilities and their state of repair are wholly unsatisfactory.’

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said responses will be studied in detail and the impact of each proposed court closure fully analysed before the lord chancellor makes final decisions later this year.