Sound bugs continue to dog Sunderland's £42million City Hall, with latest incident branded 'embarrassing'

City leaders are looking into a “technical issue” with microphones in Sunderland’s council chamber following disruption to a major planning meeting.

Meetings of Sunderland City Council transferred to City Hall at Riverside Sunderland at the end of 2021, as councillors and council staff started a phased move from the old civic centre site on Burdon Road.

At several meetings since, complaints have been made by both councillors and members of the public about audio quality in the multi-purpose council chamber space.

Back in 2022, city leaders criticised the “unacceptable” audio issues in the City Hall council chamber and promised problems would be “resolved promptly”.

At a full council meeting in January, 2023, it was revealed that the local authority had commissioned an independent consultant to review sound quality as part of plans to upgrade the council chamber space.

The city council maintains previous sound quality issues have been resolved by “rebalancing the sound” produced by the different speakers in the room.

However, a recent meeting of Sunderland City Council’s Planning and Highways Committee saw another issue flare up, with a number of table microphones failing to connect to the council chamber’s speakers.

As a result, attempts were made to pass ‘roving microphones’ between councillors, as well as committee members having to pass working desk microphones around.

At points in the planning meeting, the microphone and sound issues also affected some registered speakers temporarily.

Councillor Stephen Foster spoke out early in the meeting and noted the situation with the microphones was “not acceptable”.

Councillor Melanie Thornton, chair of the Planning and Highways Committee, later branded the situation as “embarrassing to the council” and told councillors she would be “submitting a complaint”.

As the major planning meeting drew to a close after nearly three hours and a dozen planning applications, the councillor called for issues in the council chamber to be “resolved once and for all”.

This included a solution being found before key planning applications are discussed later this year, including a new ‘short breaks’ centre at Red Gables in East Rainton.

Cllr Thornton said: “I think we will expect a high volume of residents in attendance and I don’t want a re-run of tonight.

“It’s embarrassing to the council, to be honest in this fantastic facility that we’re having to pass mics along.

“It’s very intimidating for residents to come to the planning committee anyway, it’s a very formal meeting.

“I spoke to some residents outside while I took my leave and they’re intimidated to speak anyway and it’s making it worse.

“I just think it’s appalling really in this fantastic facility, it’s just second class and it’s not good enough.

“I think many of us have [raised issues], I would just like it noted for the minutes that hopefully in time for Red Gables coming before the committee we have this issue resolved once and for all”.

The comments were made at a Planning and Highways Committee at City Hall on Monday, February 5, 2024, and follow previous concerns from other councillors about the council chamber.

At a previous full council meeting in June, 2022, councillor Mel Speding said failing to resolve issues around audio quality could impact local democracy and “disenfranchise” councillors and residents.

Councillor David Snowdon, speaking at a committee meeting on December 8, 2022, said he was surprised that City Hall had been recognised at the British Council for Offices Awards.

Official council minutes from the meeting recorded the councillor’s “annoyance [about] issues in respect of the acoustics in the council chamber”.

A meeting of the East Sunderland Area Committee, held in December, 2022, was also disrupted after it was discovered multiple microphones did not work as the batteries were flat.

More recently, technical issues arose in the council chamber during a meeting of full council on January 24, 2024, with full council meetings normally live-streamed and then hosted on the council’s YouTube channel.

However, the council posted a statement on YouTube noting that “this meeting is currently unable to be live-streamed” due to “technical difficulties” and that “no recording will be available after the meeting”.

Following microphone issues at the Planning and Highways Committee in February, 2024, Sunderland City Council confirmed it is looking into the cause to “help prevent it happening again”.

A statement from the city council said: “As part of the set-up for the [planning] meeting, the microphones were all charged and tested beforehand.

“However during the meeting, there was a technical issue that resulted in some of the microphones not connecting to the speakers.

“We are actively looking at what may have caused this to help prevent it happening again.”