Ms Angela Denning:

It is a Government decision to appoint extra judges. The previous Government made a decision before it finished up. We are expecting 20 new judges later this year or early next year. I understand six of those will be for the High Court. What has helped with the time it takes to hear cases in the planning and environment list is that the judges specialise and do nothing else. That has been a key factor. You do not have a judge who is hearing personal injury cases today, or other types of work, and then taking up a planning case. These judges just do planning cases, apart from the two who come in to assist from time to time to deal with short matters. You have three dedicated judges, and if that were to increase you would increase the throughput of the list and we would look forward to that.