One in four people in England and Wales live in “legal aid desert” areas

The findings come in the firm’s Legal Aid Deserts report, which also found that 6.6 million people live in areas it classified as housing legal aid deserts, while 4.2 million people reside in areas considered to be family legal aid deserts.

The research, which was based on the latest available public data, found that 91 local authorities are classed as legal aid deserts in at least one of the five areas analysed: housing, family, crime, immigration and employment.

Together, these authorities are home to 14.49 million people, or one in four people, in England and Wales, the report said.

According to the report, 37 local authorities, with a combined population of 5.38 million, fall into the lowest-scoring category in two or more areas.

Eight local authorities are classed as legal deserts in four or more areas: Babergh, Breckland, Derbyshire Dales, East Cambridgeshire, East Devon, Rutland, South Norfolk and West Berkshire.

LexisNexis meanwhile found that 6.6 million people live in housing legal aid deserts, 4.2 million live in family legal aid deserts, 3.6 million in crime legal aid deserts, 4.6 million in immigration legal aid deserts, and 4.1 million in employment legal aid deserts.

In practice, legal aid deserts are areas where there is a high need for legal support, but access to legal aid provision appears comparatively weak.

The report said that the figures suggest the worst access gaps are often concentrated in smaller, rural, coastal and semi-rural authorities, where provider capacity appears limited relative to legal need.

Commenting on the report’s findings, Kirsty Brimelow KC, Chair of the Bar Council of England and Wales, said: “Legal aid deserts reduce access to good quality legal advice at the early stages of proceedings, which in turn causes poor case management decisions and delays to both the case and its resolution.”

Jasmine Basran, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the national homelessness charity Crisis, meanwhile said: "Early legal advice can stop an eviction becoming a homelessness application.

“Without it, problems that could have been resolved cheaply and early can spiral, forcing people into temporary accommodation at far greater cost to the person and to the public purse.

“This report provides a critical update on legal aid across England and Wales. Even where housing legal aid exists, far too often it's out of reach.”

The analysis drew on data on legal aid provider locations, population, local authority geography and area-specific indicators of legal need across housing, family, crime, immigration and employment.

For each practice area, LexisNexis’ model compared estimated legal need with local legal aid provider capacity, adjusted for population, and applied a 15 km catchment rule to reflect nearby access to support. Local authorities in the bottom 10% of the resulting access measure were classified as legal aid deserts.

Adam Carey