WORKERS fighting to save their jobs at two courthouses threatened with closure have intensified their campaign after being granted a short reprieve.

For the past nine months staff have been on tenterhooks after learning of the Greater London Magistrates Courts Authority (GLMCA) proposal to close both Brentford and Feltham courthouses.

The closures would form part of a planned reshuffle announced in January, to abandon out-of-date buildings and reduce costs. If it gets the thumbs up, Hounslow cases will be heard in Ealing and potentially lead to scores of job losses.

This week politicians joined union leaders in calling for the plan to be abandoned after GLMCA executives agreed on Tuesday that they needed more time to review the situation.

Tony Arbour, Hounslow's Greater London Assembly member, said: "The magistrates are from the local community, and so it's local people dealing with local crime. This has been a tradition for more than 700 years.

"I also think that having a single court for two boroughs would cause a lot of problems. As well as causing unemployment, it is easy to see what other difficulties could arise. It would be a nightmare for the victims and witnesses of crimes to have to travel out of the borough and it would also place a strain on the police for exactly the same reasons."

Despite being pleased that the authority hadn't made a hasty judgement, Nick McCarthy, assistant general secretary of AMO, the Union for Magistrates Court Staff, insisted the threat posed to workers was still very much alive.

He said: "Clearly if they close the courts it would have a drastic effect for the majority of the workers. Our main concern is that a significant proportion of our workforce are women, many of whom are mothers and who have taken these jobs because they are local.

"We are worried that it could lead to a significant number of job cuts because most of these employees would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to travel across London to work at courts elsewhere."

Executive members of the GLMCA will meet on November 21 to make a final decision.