Emergency plans to avoid prison overcrowding have been activated in the North East as more people involved in unrest and riots around the country are sentenced.

Operation Early Dawn, a long-standing plan that allows defendants to be held in police cells and not summon them to magistrates’ court until a space in prison is available, was activated on Monday morning, the Ministry of Justice said.

The measure will be put in place in the North East and Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire as well as Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire regions.

Prisons and probation minister Lord Timpson said: “We inherited a justice system in crisis and exposed to shocks. As a result, we have been forced into making difficult but necessary decisions to keep it operating.

“However, thanks to the hard work of our dedicated staff and partners, we have brought forward additional prison places and now introduced Operation Early Dawn to manage the pressure felt in some parts of the country.”

National Police Chiefs’ Council custody lead Deputy Chief Constable Nev Kemp added: “We are working closely with criminal justice system partners to manage demand in the system and ensure that the public are safe.

“Policing will continue to arrest anyone that they need to in order to keep the public safe, including policing protests and events and ensuring that people are arrested as expected.”

However, it has been suggested that the operation will lead to delays in defendants appearing in court, the chief executive of the Magistrate’s Association has said.

Tom Franklin told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What this means is there will be a delay in some people who have been charged coming to court because the Prison Service can’t guarantee if they were remanded in custody there would be a place for them,” he said.

“We understand it is not in all regions, it is some regions, and we understand that it will be reviewed during the working day. We are ensured that it is a temporary measure.”

However, he said the situation should ease after September 10, when thousands of prisoners will be released from jail early under a new system.

The vice president of the Prison Governors’ Association added he is “not sure” how much Operation Early Dawn will help the prisons crisis.

Mark Icke told BBC Radio 4: “I’m not sure it does help, today, tomorrow, the next day, because, as was just suggested, we have been lurching from crisis to crisis for some time.

“Running a prison is an incredibly complex business and so we don’t know which way to turn at the moment.”

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He added that short term measures “are not ideal”.

“We have been highlighting this to the previous Government, we’ve highlighted this to the new Government, and we really do want to sit down and have a conversation about what the purpose of prison is moving forward,” he said.

“We cannot carry on operating in this kind of environment, it’s just too much pressure.”