The Civil Courts Order 2014

Statutory Instruments

2014 No. 819

Senior Courts Of England And Wales

The Civil Courts Order 2014

Made

27th March 2014

Laid before Parliament

31st March 2014

Coming into force

22nd April 2014

The Lord Chancellor, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 99(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981(1), having consulted the Lord Chief Justice in accordance with that section, makes the following Order:

Commencement, citation and interpretation

1.—(1) This Order may be cited as the Civil Courts Order 2014 and shall come into force on 22nd April 2014.

(2) In this Order “Chancery district registry” means the Chancery district registries sitting at Birmingham, Bristol, Caernarfon, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Mold, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Preston.

District Registries of the High Court

2.—(1) There shall be a district registry at each of the places specified in the first column of the Schedule to this Order.

(2) The name of every place so specified shall be the name of the district registry at that place, except that the name of the district registry at Brecon shall be the Brecknock District Registry, the name of the district registry at Chatham shall be the Medway District Registry, the name of the district registry at Margate shall be the Thanet District Registry and the name of the district registry at Torquay shall be the Torquay and Newton Abbot District Registry.

(3) A district registry which is also a Chancery district registry is denoted by the words “(Chancery)” following the name of the place at which the district registry is situated.

(4) The district of each district registry shall be the area comprising the areas served by the hearing centres of the County Court named in the second column of the Schedule to this Order opposite the name of the place at which the district registry is situated.

Signed by authority of the Lord Chancellor

Shailesh Vara

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

Ministry of Justice

27th March 2014

Article 2

SCHEDULE

First column	Second column
Name of place	Districts defined by reference to areas served by hearing centres of the County Court
Aberystwyth	Aberystwyth
Barnsley	Barnsley
Barnstaple	Barnstaple
Barrow-in-Furness	Barrow-in-Furness
Basingstoke	Basingstoke
Bath	Bath Chippenham and Trowbridge
Bedford	Bedford
Birkenhead	Birkenhead
Birmingham (Chancery)	Birmingham
Blackburn	Blackburn
Blackpool	Blackpool
Blackwood	Blackwood
Bolton	Bolton
Boston	Boston
Bournemouth	Bournemouth and Poole
Bradford	Bradford
Brecon	Brecknock
Bridgend	Bridgend Neath and Port Talbot
Brighton	Brighton Lewes
Bristol (Chancery)	Bristol Weston-super-Mare
Burnley	Accrington Burnley
Bury	Bury
Bury St. Edmonds	Bury St. Edmunds
Caernarfon (Chancery)	Caernarfon Conwy and Colwyn Porthmadog
Cambridge	Cambridge
Canterbury	Canterbury
Cardiff (Chancery)	Cardiff
Carlisle	Carlisle
Carmarthen	Carmarthen Llanelli
Chatham	Medway Dartford
Chelmsford	Chelmsford Hertford
Chester	Chester
Chesterfield	Chesterfield
Chichester	Chichester
Colchester	Colchester and Clacton
Coventry	Banbury Coventry Nuneaton Warwick
Crewe	Crewe
Croydon	Bromley Croydon
Darlington	Darlington
Derby	Buxton Derby
Doncaster	Doncaster Rotherham
Dudley	Dudley
Durham	Durham
Eastbourne	Eastbourne
Exeter	Exeter
Gloucester	Gloucester and Cheltenham
Great Grimsby	Great Grimsby
Guildford	Aldershot and Farnham Guildford Reigate
Halifax	Halifax
Harrogate	Harrogate
Hartlepool	Hartlepool
Hastings	Hastings
Haverfordwest	Haverfordwest
Hereford	Hereford
Huddersfield	Huddersfield
Ipswich	Ipswich
Kendal	Kendal
King’s Lynn	King’s Lynn
Kingston-upon-Hull	Kingston-upon-Hull
Lancaster	Lancaster
Leeds (Chancery)	Leeds
Leicester	Leicester Loughborough
Lincoln	Lincoln
Liverpool (Chancery)	Liverpool
Llangefni	Llangefni
Luton	Luton
Macclesfield	Macclesfield
Maidstone	Maidstone
Manchester (Chancery)	Altrincham Manchester
Mansfield	Mansfield
Margate	Thanet
Merthyr Tydfil	Merthyr Tydfil
Middlesbrough	Middlesbrough
Milton Keynes	Aylesbury Milton Keynes
Mold (Chancery)	Mold
Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Chancery)	Morpeth and Berwick Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Newport (Gwent)	Newport (Gwent)
Newport (Isle of Wight)	Newport (Isle of Wight)
Northampton	Kettering Northampton
Norwich	Norwich
Nottingham	Nottingham
Oldham	Oldham Tameside
Oxford	Oxford
Peterborough	Peterborough
Plymouth	Plymouth
Pontypridd	Pontypridd
Portsmouth	Portsmouth
Preston (Chancery)	Preston
Reading	Reading Slough
Rhyl	Rhyl
Romford	Basildon Romford
St Helens	St Helens
Salisbury	Salisbury
Scarborough	Scarborough
Scunthorpe	Scunthorpe
Sheffield	Sheffield
Skipton	Skipton
Southampton	Southampton
Southend-on-Sea	Southend-on-Sea
South Shields	North Shields South Shields
Stafford	Stafford
Stockport	Stockport
Stock-on-Trent	Stoke-on-Trent
Sunderland	Gateshead Sunderland
Swansea	Swansea
Swindon	Swindon
Taunton	Taunton
Telford	Telford
Torquay	Torquay and Newton Abbot
Truro	Bodmin Truro
Tunbridge Wells	Tunbridge Wells
Wakefield	Wakefield
Walsall	Walsall
Warrington	Warrington
Welshpool	Welshpool and Newtown
Weymouth	Weymouth
Wigan	Wigan
Winchester	Winchester
Wolverhampton	Wolverhampton
Worcester	Worcester
Workington	West Cumbria
Worthing	Horsham Worthing
Wrexham	Wrexham
Yeovil	Yeovil
York	York

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order replaces the Civil Courts Order 1983 (SI 1983/713) (“the 1983 Order”). It specifies the locations and names of the district registries of the High Court in England and Wales.

Previously, the district of each district registry was defined by reference to the area comprising the districts of particular county courts, which were specified in the 1983 Order. However, following the coming into force of section 17 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 (c.22), which amends the County Courts Act 1984 (c.28) to establish a single County Court for England and Wales, the district served by each district registry is now defined by reference to the areas served by the particular hearing centres of the County Court specified in this Order. The number and locations of the district registries have not been changed. Those County Court hearing centres which now define the district of each district registry correspond to the county courts which previously defined them.

The 1983 Order also specified those county courts which had jurisdiction in respect of proceedings under the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 (c.42), the Insolvency Act 1986 (c.45), the Race Relations Act 1976 (c.74) the Companies Act 2006 (c.46) and the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000 (c.12). However, following the implementation of both the single County Court and the family court, it is no longer necessary, or possible, to confer jurisdiction in this way. Accordingly, similar provision is not made in this Order.

The 1983 Order and those subsequent orders which amended it are repealed by the Crime and Courts Act 2013 (Consequential, Transitional and Saving Provisions) Order 2014 (SI 2014/820) (“The 2014 Order”). This is because the 2013 Act will repeal some of the relevant order making powers in primary legislation, under which the 1983 Order was made, on the same date that the 1983 Order is revoked. On that basis, it is not possible to use those powers to revoke, in their entirety, the 1983 Order or the amending orders.

The Insolvency (Commencement of Proceedings) and Insolvency Rules 1986 (Amendment) Rules 2014 (SI 2014/817) now specify those County Court hearing centres where proceedings under the Insolvency Act 1986 must be commenced and, for the time being, the 2014 Order provides that proceedings under the Race Relations Act 1976 (which although repealed, is subject to a number of savings) will continue to be heard in those hearing centres which correspond to the county courts previously designated for that purpose.

(1)

1981 c.54. Section 99 was amended by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (c.4), section 15(1) and Schedule 4, Part 1, paragraphs 114 and 143(1), (2) and (3).