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One of London’s crown courts is set to be closed for most of 2025 amid “complex” work to remove dangerous RAAC concrete from the roof.
Harrow crown court was suddenly shut down in August 2023 after Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) was discovered during upgrade work.
The news delivered a blow to efforts to tackle London’s growing backlog of criminal cases waiting to be heard, and HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) said at the time that the closure would last six to nine months.
Early last year, news leaked that the closure would be extended until April 2025 because the RAAC was more widespread than first thought.
And on Friday, HMCTS included in its weekly newsletter that the courthouse is now not set to re-open at all until “the end of 2025”, and not expected to be fully operational until early 2026.
This means the closure will have lasted for two-and-a-half years by the time the courthouse is fully reopened.
“Harrow Crown Court has been closed since August 2023 when Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) was identified at the site”, the message set out.
“Since then, we have worked with staff, the judiciary and stakeholders to make sure work from the court has continued to be heard at other London sites.
“We are working to remove all RAAC material from the site, while also replacing the roof structure.
“The necessary works have proven to be more complex and taken longer to complete than first anticipated.
“The safety of staff, judicial colleagues and court users is paramount and the works now underway will provide a permanent solution to the risk of RAAC failure.
“We will continue to work with our appointed contractor to accelerate the required works as much as possible.
“We now anticipate that Harrow will be ready to resume hearings in a phased approach from the end of 2025, with the whole building fully operational in January 2026.”
Harrow judges have been sitting on trials at Willesden magistrates court and the former Hendon magistrates court, as well as hearing cases at available courtrooms at Wood Green crown court, Croydon crown court, Southwark crown court, and the Old Bailey.
Some trials have been moved from Harrow to as far away as Amersham to try to keep the cases on track.
The courthouse in Harrow has eight hearing rooms which are all fit to handle full jury trials.
It was not among the courthouses to be originally inspected when the dangers of RAAC first emerged, when it was thought that the problems was confined to buildings built between 1960 and the late 1980s.
The nationwide RAAC surveys of courts were extended to 1990s constructions after the discovery at Harrow, during unrelated work intended to upgrade the roof.