Tamworth Regional Council is so short of planners, development applications are being sent to Sydney: Director of Liveable Communities Gina Vereker

With the town planning department short about five staff - half their normal strength - many applicants are facing delays.

Tamworth Regional Council Director of Liveable Communities, Gina Vereker, said there is no simple solution for the problem.

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"If we have a DA we haven't got a staff member to process we can send it to Department of Planning in Sydney and they will give it to a consultant for the consultant to do the assessment," she said.

"Certainly, we're taking up that opportunity for some of our DAs. But, of course, that means someone who doesn't know anything about Tamworth is going to assess the application. Then it will come back to us and we will still have to run our eyes over it. But it will help."

Ms Vereker said the state government has snapped up scores of town planners from rural councils to work on policy reviews they are undertaking.

Others have gone to consultancies, which have taken on additional staff due to an enormous boom of development in Sydney and statewide.

Not only do both groups pay better - and the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment is based in Sydney - but state planners rarely have to talk to the 'hoi polloi'.

"They don't have to take the whingers - people, rightly at the moment, whingeing that their DA hasn't been yet issued yet," she said.

"The development planners, they cop a lot of flack.

"What we're finding over the last probably 10 years is that a lot of the younger planners who would now be well experienced are either burning out or, for other reasons, are just moving out of the industry altogether."

Tamworth council has advertised recruitment three times, contracted recruitment companies, and even offered a "market allowance" - higher wages.

Plan D is to hire absolute beginners fresh out of university and train them up.

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The shortfall shouldn't be an enormous problem for residential development, which tends to be approvable through council's 10-day fast track system, or by private certifiers.

Council planners have recently started approving some commercial and industrial development on the fast track.

But a development that requires a variance from standard zoning rules may take longer, despite the crew working extra hard, Ms Vereker said.

"They're working long hours, particularly the manager," she said.

"I think some of the team they're quite stressed, because they've got applicants ringing them every day saying 'when's this going to be ready'. They're conscientious, they want to get these things done."

Many other rural councils also report a shortage of planners, thanks to a statewide shortage of trained personnel. Tamworth is also short of development engineers.

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