A new Crown courtroom has officially opened at Hereford Justice Centre, marking a significant milestone in restoring court capacity in the region following the closure of Hereford’s historic Shire Hall.
The opening ceremony held yesterday (13 October 2025) marked the completion of extensive conversion works at the Magistrates’ Court building into a joint magistrates’ and Crown Court facility. Hereford becomes one of a small number of courts across England and Wales that hears cases from all jurisdictions.
Since 28 February 2025, the opening of this new Crown Court has enabled 14 multi-day and multi-week trials to be heard in Hereford. Without this additional facility, these would likely have been adjourned due to lack of court time in Worcester Crown Court. The Senior Presiding Judge attended the official opening event.
In the late 1990’s, the Magistrates Courts Committee entered into a PFI contract to build new courthouses in Hereford and Worcestershire. Hereford was the first to be built and in 2001 was completed to provide a purpose-built facility for all magistrates’ court business.
The Court Service also had a long-standing relationship with the Hereford Shire Hall which was built in 1817. For over two centuries, it had been used as the meeting place for the Herefordshire County Council and as the home of Hereford’s Crown Court.
However, in March 2020 the Shire Hall suffered a ceiling collapse in both courtrooms and left them in a dangerous and unusable condition. The expansion of this new Crown courtroom facility will restore case capacity in the region to full capacity.
Minister for Courts and Legal Services, Sarah Sackman KC MP, said
I’m pleased to see the opening of this new Crown courtroom facility in Hereford, allowing us to return to full court case capacity. This development will provide an essential boost to our court infrastructure and ensure people living in Hereford and surrounding communities have timely access to justice.
This is one of two new Crown courtrooms introduced across the region this year, following the official opening of Redditch Crown Court in January this year. It also follows the opening of two new courtrooms in Sheffield to hear civil and family cases last month. These developments are part of our continued work to strengthen the justice system’s ability to process cases as efficiently and quickly as possible.
Jury trials have not been held in the Hereford area since June 2020, when the roof collapsed at Shire Hall. COVID-19 restrictions then contributed to further backlogs of trials awaiting dates. Since then, Crown court trials had been held in Worcester, with some Crown Court sentencing hearings taking place at Hereford’s magistrates’ court.