A total of £180,000 is going to be needed to help out with a staffing crisis and planning application backlog at the Lake District National Park Authority.
The organisation is drawing down £121,464 from its coffers to foot the bill for interim additional staffing, and £60,174 on permanent recruitment.
This year, development control managers at Murley Moss have made no secret of experiencing delays in “keeping pace with incoming work, backlogs and enforcement”.
It comes against a national shortage of planning officers with candidates having the right skills being “scarce”, according to a report to its resources committee from Andrew Smith, its head of development management.
The national park has reported 59 applications are currently “unallocated” — which is a massive fall on the 250 which were effectively gathering dust at the start of the year in January.
The waiting time for an application to reach an available planning officer has been around seven weeks due to the backlog. The LDNPA also has around 628 enforcement cases on its books — four times higher than its target.
A report to the committee this week shows that some progress has been made towards getting new people in and establishing apprenticeships at the LDNPA.
But bosses have also warned that contractor and agency costs are higher than the going rate for employees, with hourly rates in the private sector costing anywhere between £30 to £100.
A report said: “This reflects the national picture of a shortage of skills in the sector, high demand for agency and contract staff, and (private) agencies drawing candidates away from the public sector. Retention of existing staff is critical. Recruitment conditions are challenging. Existing staffing cannot be readily replaced.”
Undergraduate apprentices at the entry level are paid around £23,000 for a planning role, while experienced “area planners” are paid up to £41,178
The LDNPA has to meet targets set by the Government for dealing with planning applications in a certain amount of time, which bosses have said it is comfortably managing to achieve.
Figures show that since October last year, the LDNPA has issued 37 formal enforcement notices — including nine against unauthorised dwellings and holiday lets in places such as Ambleside, Glenridding, Keswick and Windermere.
The LDNPA is ranked top of all of England’s national parks for enforcement action, and joint 26th with Manchester City Council.
