The NSW Local Court is so overworked and starved of resources that it may be forced to cut sitting hours to preserve the health and wellbeing of magistrates, the state's top magistrate has warned as he set himself on a collision course with the Berejiklian government over funding.

Judge Graeme Henson, who has been chief magistrate for more than a decade, said the court was facing a "burgeoning case load" and a shortage of resources with "no likely relief on the horizon".

Chief Magistrate Graeme Henson says the government is "insufficiently concerned" with the resourcing shortfall facing the Local Court. Credit:Brendan Esposito

"There is a limit to what may reasonably be expected of the Local Court," Judge Henson said in a foreword to the court's 2018 annual review, released this month. "In my view, that limit has been reached."

Judge Henson has previously criticised the government over the level of resources allocated to the Local Court, but his latest comments go further by threatening changes to court practices unless more resources are made available.