The new regional administrative courts have issued more cases than expected in their first year of operation, according to figures seen by the Gazette.

In April 2009, the Administrative Court began to sit in four regional venues in Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds and Manchester to increase access to justice and ease the burden on London.

Figures from the Administrative Court Office show that between 21 April 2009 and 5 March this year, a total of 14,816 judicial review cases were issued, of which 1,345 (9%) were issued in the regional centres.

That exceeds the 7% target for the percentage of cases that the judicial working group on the new courts anticipated would be issued in the regions. Before regionalisation, the working group noted that 7% of claims issued in the Administrative Court had a local connection and could feasibly be heard outside London.

Manchester saw the highest numbers of cases issued, with 3.3%, followed by 2.8% in Birmingham, 2.2% in Leeds and 0.8% in Cardiff.

Sam Karim, public law barrister at Kings Chambers in Manchester and Leeds, said: ‘The regional centres have shown they can dispose of cases much faster than in London, often in as little as a quarter of the time. There was a huge backlog in London and, since the regional courts began hearing cases, waiting times in London have fallen, particularly for substantive hearings and renewal hearings.’

Karim said one of the principal challenges for the new system was to avoid ‘forum shopping’ where claimants seek to use the court that they believed would provide them with the most favourable result.