Amble, 16-Jul-19

Dear Melanie,

If I’ve got it right, you were talking about us raising, a month or so back, a freedom of information request (EIR) about UK Docks. You seemed amazed as I was that they were telling people that they had applied for and been granted retrospective planning for their slipway enclosure (Mr Wilson’s boat shed) on River Drive:

“Hi Mick,I appreciate your arguments, but this far down the line there is nothing we can do. Angela has talked to several relevant people, and the point is the council gave retrospective planning. Which they are allowed to do.”

Resident of Harbour View, 1-May-19.

It completely destroys any credit in what the Council have been telling us about Tyne Slipway and later UK Docks for over 5 years i.e. the height of their shed had been approved. There is no evidence of an application being raised let alone one being granted retrospectively. There was no need for one and I refer to the response Mr Cunningham gave you to an enquiry you made in June 2014:

Hello – The Head of Development Services is out of the office at the moment and I have been asked to respond to your email – my colleague from the Building Control Team has confirmed that they sent the completion certificate out on June 17th. The final Building Control inspection was on 13th June.
Regards
Principal Planning Officer

Obviously his colleague, Mike Telford, took no measurements or he would have found Mr Wilson’s boat shed (shed) to be nearly a meter wider and nearly three meters taller than planned. In fact I discovered later that Building Control had never measured the shed, see EIR17772, nor was Mr Cunningham’s visit recorded either, see EIR17773.

Continue reading Cllr A: Mail to Melanie →

Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2019 14:26:11 +0100
From: mick.dawson@theharbourview.co.uk
Subject: Cllr A: Slipway Development, River Drive and the LGO
To: Melanie Todd melanietodd@me.com
Cc: Cllr Angela Hamilton Cllr.angela.hamilton@southtyneside.gov.uk, Cllr David Francis davidfrancisdrums@hotmail.co.uk, Cllr Anglin cllr.john.anglin@southtyneside.gov.uk, Andrew Tilbury andrew.tilbury@peterdunn.co.uk, Peter Cunningham peter.cunningham@southtyneside.gov.uk, George Mansbridge george.mansbridge@southtyneside.gov.uk, Customer Advocates Customer.Advocates@southtyneside.gov.uk, Garry Simmonette garry.simmonette@southtyneside.gov.uk, Hayley Johnson Hayley.Johnson@southtyneside.gov.uk, “Gill Hayton (Solicitor)” gill.hayton@southtyneside.gov.uk, Mike Harding mike.harding@southtyneside.gov.uk, Graeme Watson watson.graeme@yahoo.com, Emma Lewell-Buck MP emma.lewell-buck.mp@parliament.uk, Stephen Hepburn MP hepburns@parliament.uk, Stuart Wright Stuart.Wright@southtyneside.gov.uk

Dear Melanie,
I adopted this format of an introductory email and attached letter shortly after I raised a complaint about Cllr Anglin in September last year – it allows for a large number of cross references or URLs and I can copy it onto the web-site.
Most of those above have been copied for information and a few because I am calling them something wicked. I’d be a hypocrite if I called them behind their backs by leaving of the list. If Customer Advocacy wish to tell Mr Swales what is going on it is up to them.
The two MPs are included because I wrote to them when I realised things were going awry, before we received the final draft from the Ombudsman, the big giveaway being that her draft and the last effort by STC did not mention the height of the shed at all. I’ll have to write separately Anne-Marie as her office think I am still in Shields. In the end it will have to be the MPs that handle this. The Local Government Ombudsman is no longer serving the public!
You may wonder what took me so long to get things into perspective but on a visit to South Shields last Summer I thought I’d go and look at my old house in Greens Place and I saw Graeme, or rather saw him hiding behind the rear door of his car. He clearly did not wish to be seen which was stupid but it reminded me of the meeting he, Haig and I met with the Cllrs and Peter Cunningham at the Town Hall. I had never seen anyone at a meeting look so uncomfortable in all my life and I remembered why. He and Cllr Anglin were both responsible for making it fail, and Haig was not helping so I looked to the minutes of the TGA again and sure enough there was lots to go on.
I also remembered a warning I had given to Emma about him, Cllr Anglin that is, while UK Docks were extending their shed in August 2017 and she replied that I really should complain to the Monitoring Officer and so I did on September 19th but I chose the meeting for starters. The main course is not served yet and I’ll leave Sunday working for pudding.
What I really feel about the response three months later is best left unsaid but you will get a feel of it from the attached letter.
I’ll see what happens over the recess and get back to you when Boris has seen sense and revoked Article 50. Ha – in the meantime if any of the links are of equal nonsense please let me know.
Cheers
Mick

Attachments:

• 8DLL.pdf – Advice from Solicitor.
• D8296_14n.pdf – approved drawing with notes showing that the shed is 2.7m too high and nearly a meter too wide.
• tomelanie23july19.pdf – attached letter, dated 16-Jul-23