Shortages add to city's woes

Sunderland Echo
By Jeremy Wicking

Staff shortages have "worsened" for a crisis-hit department behind Sunderland's parking fiasco.
Bosses fears that unfilled vacancies in development and regeneration have had a major impact on city services, such as planning and parking.
Opposition Tory councillors today demanded a review after it emerged that the department's boss is to reveal that holes in staffing are getting worse.
Council officers have already said that the city's road safety education programme has slipped because of the lack of trained staff.
Shortages had also led to the legal loopholes in Sunderland's parking rule-book, forcing them to pay back tens of thousands of pounds' worth of fines.
Last week, a three-week inquiry into the city's Unitary Development Plan was cancelled at the last minute because a public notice was not posted. Civic officials are now investigating what went wrong.
Phil Barrett, the council's parking and planning boss, will outline the problems to a meeting of the environmental and planning panel.
Mr Barrett said: "At this time the situation has worsened, with current vacancies within the traffic parking and road safety section for a manager, a deputy manager and a principal engineer."
Conservative councillor Lee Martin, the opposition group's regeneration and planning spokesman, said: "I am hardly surprised there are vacancies, as this department has effectively been under seige for the last two years."
Campaigner Neil Herron, who picked legal holes in the council's parking system, said: "There has been a total breakdown in city parking and, if the council does not have the staff, it will continue to be chaos."