Nine new judges have been appointed to provincial courts around B.C. following months of complaints from lawyers and the NDP about court delays caused by a lack of staff.

The B.C. government said Tuesday four of the new judges will serve in the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley areas, two will be added in Prince George and one each in Nanaimo, Smithers and Penticton.

Attorney General Shirley Bond said the extra judges will help ease pressures in the justice system, but the appointments are just part of the solution.

"In the coming days, we'll be looking very closely at larger reform of the system and specifically how we can find efficiencies and long-term solutions to the pressures our courts are facing, instead of just looking at more funding as the only answer," she said in a statement.

The government said each new provincial court judge costs $1.4 million and it has appointed 23 new judges since February, 2010, including five last July, but provincial court figures show there are still nine fewer judges compared to 2005.

NDP critic Leonard Krog, who has said more than 2,500 criminal cases are in danger of being tossed out because of delays in B.C.'s court system, said the appointments are a move in the right direction.

"Well, it's taken a long time to shove the government in the right direction, but they finally have. Nine new judges, though, only brings us half way to the complement of judges we had in 2005," he said.

Provincial court judges in B.C. tossed out 109 cases last year because the accused waited too long to get to trial -- double the number of cases stayed in 2010 when there were 10,000 fewer cases.

Last fall, one judge said he was forced to free an "unrepentant" cocaine dealer because his legal odyssey between charge and trial took four years, while another judge stayed charges against a man accused of using a stolen truck to attempt to ram a police officer's vehicle off the road.

Last October, Bond announced the government would bring back retired judges to help deal with the logjam in the courts, but the move was greeted with skepticism by the provincial court's chief judge and a lawyers' group.