Shed and Corruption – Part 4: Shooting the Messenger

Mr X never said, “the Council should have made the developer to submit new plans” he said “The applicant can say what he wishes but the Council should not have taken him at his word. I have shown that he is using an error on the drawing (atts: K,L) to justify his flouting of Condition 2. It speaks of incompetence or worse for a senior planning officer to have overlooked this and not corrected the applicant and asked him to put in a retrospective planning application or remove the framework.

The following points appeared in the Ombudsman’s Findings after I had explained to her the shortcomings of using 8296/1A to claim the shed had been built to plan.

30

Mr X says the shed is also 3 metres higher than shown in the 1996 plans. He says a scale measurement from the plans shows a total height of 12.75 metres at one end of the shed;
this is true – see drawing 8296/2.

31

this plan has several drawings using different scales and some are foreshortened;
– the ones that are not to scale have been stretched – not foreshortened.

32

It is too long ago for the Ombudsman to consider a complaint about the accuracy of the drawings accepted by the Development Corporation in 1996;
– an error on a drawing does not disappear with age, it is more likely to be discovered as time goes on and more people see it!
Mr X prefers the term broadcasting rather than the pejorative term ‘a scattergun approach’.

33

In response to a draft of my decision Mr X says the 15.5 metres height relates to the river end. He considers the land end should be 2.6 metres lower. He says the Council cannot prove 15.5 metres relates to the land end not the river end. I do not agree;
A convoluted way of telling a lie. Mr X actually said; “when I could prove that the shed was not built to an authorised plan, contradicting Mr Cunningham’s assertion that it was, I sent an email to planning enquiries on 10 Jan 2014”

34

I have seen the 1996 plans. On plan 1/B the applicant has written the proposed elevations at the inland end as 12.5 metres plus 3 metres. Mr X says the Council should not have taken the applicant’s word for this. The planning authority has to consider what an applicant applies for; it can grant or refuse this but it cannot make an applicant submit something different. This developer applied for a shed 15.5 metres high at the land end. The Tyne and Wear Development Corporation as planning authority approved this. The current Council had to accept this as the approved height.
the Development Corporation did not approve this as the approved height, see 8296/2 or 8296/14;

It looks like the Senior Planning Officer was so desperate to claim approval for the shed that he sent her the pair of drawings given to the Council on the 6th September 2013 by UK Docks. I use this reference again because Miss Hamilton had dropped 8296/1B from her list of authorised prints in her faux Stage 3 response: I agree with the Planning Team’s assessment that, on balance, drawings 8296/1 A, 8296/2 and 8296/4 can be reasonably considered to show the approved development.
Drawing 8296/1A like 1B shows both end to have the same height, 15.5m and it can only be said to represent the approved development if one assumes the land ward end one to be 2.7m less, i.e. 12.8m.

35

In January 2014 the Council wrote to Mr X about this. It said it had taken measurements on site and the shed as built matches these measurements. Since then the Council has consistently told Mr X the shed is the correct height;– consistently lied about the correct height – see last reference to D8296_1B.
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4 Responses to Shed and Corruption – Part 4: Shooting the Messenger

  1. Paul says:

    Micheal I have experienced a similar issues with council complaint corruption. Then abusing contact restrictions to close down and silence the victim.

    • Mick Dawson says:

      Hi Paul, thank you for your support.

    • Paul says:

      Hi Paul,
      Don’t worry, she’s what my mother would have called a nasty piece of work and I have marked your emails as spam. I get up to half a dozen a day.
      I’d forgotten to include her in the list of Cc’s so I used the opportunity of commenting on Part 8 to pass a copy of it to her.
      When she first slagged us off in 2015 she did not copy me or anyone else in and I did not find out about it for six months:
      The matters and allegations raised by your constituent are well documented and have been subject to a number of enquiries from Mr Dawson and other local residents over a lengthy period of time.
      As I do not want to be accused of hypocrisy, I like to make sure that she is aware my views.

  2. Mick Dawson says:

    The Council are operating their own Complaints Procedure corruptly. Is aking them why they persist in doing it unreasonable bevaviour?
    Defined in Section 7: Complaints Policy 2019v1.5 :
    7. Managing unacceptable and/or unreasonable behaviour South Tyneside Council is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible service for all of our customers, but we also need to ensure we provide a safe working environment for our staff.

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