EVENING surgeries are to be introduced in an effort to tackle a backlog of problems caused by staff shortages and recruitment difficulties at a council department.

Delays at Ryedale District Council's planning department have left some residents unhappy with how their planning applications were being dealt with.

But now two-hour advice clinics have been set up at Ryedale House, in Malton, to allow local residents with queries over planning to meet officers at pre-booked appointment times.

Development control manager Gary Housden said the measures had been brought in to cope with the volume of work staff were faced with.

"I would not call it a backlog of work, but one of the services we used to provide - that of site visits - dropped off, because staff levels were such that we had to stop the service," he explained.

"We were not really able to help applicants in any way.

"The purpose of this surgery is to allow people to come along with their ideas and proposals to get some initial help from planning officers.

"It's a way of giving informal advice before applicants go and spend money getting plans drawn up, only for them to be re-drawn at a later stage."

Mr Housden said there were high hopes the new evening slots would be convenient for residents and a useful way of getting advice on prospective planning applications.

"We are already getting people phoning in to book a slot," he said.

"Clearly, if there's a lot of demand we will have to review it.

"As things stand, we are currently short of an experienced planning officer to do site visits, so in the interim we have come up with something to deal with that."

Mr Housden said the council was conducting interviews next week to fill a position, and they hoped to have an experienced planning officer on board by the end of the year.

The free advice clinics will run from 5pm to 7pm every Wednesday starting from October 2.

Residents who are looking for guidance on planning applications and who are not employing the services of an agent are asked to pre-book the 15-minute sessions where they will be guided through the planning application process by the district's planning officers.

For more information contact them on 01653 600666, extension 381.

Updated: 08:32 Friday, September 27, 2002