Leeds has been named Yorkshire’s divorce capital.
A list of hotspots for marital strife, published by the Ministry of Justice, revealed the divorce courts in Leeds dealt with 1,507 warring couple last year.
Wakefield County Court dealt with 575 cases, Dewsbury with 104, Harrogate with 516, Pontefract with 254 and neighbouring Bradford with 869.
Now the MoJ is urging separating couples to use mediation instead of ending up in courtroom battles.
The department has already announced that it expects to spend £25 million to support publicly-funded mediation this year and new laws are now being created to ensure that all separating couples must consider mediation to sort out the details of their divorce, before they decide to take their dispute to the Courts.
Family Justice Minister Lord McNally said: “All too often I hear stories of families going through expensive and traumatic court hearings but we know that when working out how to split assets and arrange time with the children, mediation is a far simpler and cheaper approach for everyone and leads to better outcomes.”
The national list showed Birmingham was the country’s biggest divorce hotspot outside Greater London, with almost 3,000 couples filing for divorce last year. Click here to register and have your say on the stories and issues that matter to you
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