AC-2025-LON-00828 - [2025] EWHC 2598 (Admin)

In light of the legal framework above it is necessary to determine whether this case has a “specific connection” to a region and/or which region the claim is “most closely connected” with, by reference to the factors set out in paragraphs 2.1 and 2.5.

The Claimant is located in Newcastle. The decisions of the Defendant which feature in the claim appear to have been made in Sheffield. Both Newcastle and Sheffield are the North Eastern region.

Although there was, as the Defendant’s submissions highlight, an extant appeal to the Court of Appeal in respect of the refusal of interim relief in this case, that was determined by Singh LJ on 10 April 2025 and the approved judgment in respect of that decision was submitted to the court by the parties on 4 September 2025.

Accordingly, no substantive aspect of this case remains in London. The case plainly has the closest connection with the North Eastern region.

As to the other factors in paragraph 2.5, factor (g) is clearly engaged given that three earlier judicial reviews between the parties have been commenced in the North-Eastern region, with case numbers AC-2023-LDS-000052, AC-2023-LDS-000105 and AC-2024-LDS-000076.

Moreover, case number AC-2024-LDS-000076, relating to the Defendant’s refusal of a new sponsor license for the Claimants, is ongoing in the North Eastern region: the court is awaiting dates of availability from the Claimants’ counsel in order to list an oral hearing of the renewed application for permission (the same having been refused on the papers by HHJ Klein, sitting as Judge of the High Court).

This case raises similar, and linked, issues to those in case number AC-2024-LDS-000076, such that it is desirable that they be determined in the same court.

Related to (e) and (f), the Claimant has expressed some concern about the resources available to the Administrative Court in Leeds to make orders on an urgent basis when the need arises. However, as the issue of interim relief in this case has been conclusively determined by the judgment of Singh LJ, there should be no or less of a need for such an urgent order in this case going forward. If an application is genuinely urgent and cannot be considered quickly enough at the Administrative Court in Leeds, there is a mechanism by which it can be transferred to London.

Under (c), the Administrative Court in Leeds has video-link hearing facilities should they be needed.

Under (d), there is generally a public interest in proceedings being heard in the locality to which the claim relates, a public interest which is reflected in PD 54C.

Factor (h) does not apply.

As to factor (a), the primary reason relied on by both parties for the case remaining in London is that their legal representatives are based in London. It is said that travel would be easier and cheaper if the case remained in London, thus engaging factors (b) and (i). However, as Fordham J highlighted in R (Airedale Chemical Company Ltd) v HMRC [2022] EWHC 2937 (Admin) at [3], the parties have “decision-making autonomy” as to which lawyers to instruct; and as he said in R (Thakor / Palmer) v SSHD [2022] EWHC 2556 (Admin) Thakor at [2], instructing London counsel “ought not…normally ‘drive’ a London choice of venue becoming self-fulfilling”.

In my judgment the parties’ choice to instruct legal representatives in London is not a persuasive enough factor, on its own, to outweigh the others set out above. Those factors justify the case being transferred.