Prison vans are to get green lights and bus lane access nationally to cut a court backlog of 460,000 cases

From the Newshound archive · first published 4 October 2026.

The Ministry of Justice and Department for Transport have sent a joint letter to local authorities across England and Wales requesting priority routing for prison vans travelling to court, encompassing green-light progression and access to bus lanes. The plan builds on pilots conducted in Manchester, Bristol, Salford, Nottingham and London, where dedicated bus corridors cut journey times by as much as one-third. More than 1,000 hearings were postponed last year because defendants reached court too late for proceedings to begin.

Crown courts are sitting on more than 80,000 waiting cases, with magistrates' courts carrying a further backlog of 380,000.

Late arrivals waste court time and force victims and witnesses to wait longer to give evidence, driving up costly adjournments.

The national rollout is part of a wider government drive to stop trials being delayed or abandoned entirely due to transport failures.