Reference ATC staffing - there is now an additional radar valid controller who was previously tower only, which will allow another of the tower only controllers to cross train onto radar. Whilst it doesn't completely solve the issues I hope a corner has been turned, and provided there are no further long term sickness casualties then there shouldn't be any need for further closures.
On a different note - does anyone think GSM may be holding some route announcements back for next summer? I seem to remember they did similar for this summer - all be it for the 2nd aircraft not to start until end of June, but at least there was something there. They had a bad run of luck in August with mega delays and with not having a massive fleet seemed to have difficulty covering sectors resulting in 8 hour + delays...let's hope they can get on top of this for the skeleton winter program to encourage bookings for next summer!
-HD-