Shed and Corruption – Part 4: Shooting the Messenger

Covering Email, 21-June-21:
Shed and Corruption - Part 4
From: mick.dawson@theharbourview.co.uk
Date: 21/06/2021 (09:27:37 GMT)
To: Paula Abbott
Cc: Peter Cunningham,George Mansbridge, Alison Hoy, Emma Lewell-Buck MP,
Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, Helen Dalby, Planning Enquiries, John Rumney
Attachment: Shed and Corruption - Part 4

Dear Ms Abbott,
It would appear that you have not been told that the Council’s Corporate Lead had already misused a Section F of an earlier code to malign me nor of her earlier implication/accusation that it was the good folk of South Shields who were lying about UK Docks shed when all along it was the Council who were giving out misinformation about the height of the shed.
You will notice that I have not addressed anything said since Ms Hoy’s supposed letter to me of 28 August 2018 and this is deliberate because I wanted to concentrate on refuting your accusation that that I have been an unreasonable and persistent complainant – please see the attached letter ‘Killing the Messenger’.
That you have been asked to repeat the strategy employed by the Chief Executive’s appointment of the Council’s Corporate Lead five years ago speaks volumes and I hope I have made the point perfectly clear that when she told the MP for Berwick in July 2015: “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” – that she was being extremely economical with the truth.

It would appear by your inclusion of the ‘Press’ at the end of your false claim about my conduct:

• Adopting a ‘scattergun’ approach: pursuing a complaint or complaints with the authority and, at the same time, with a Member of Parliament/a councillor/ independent auditor/the Standards Board/local police/solicitors/the Local Government Ombudsman/the press

that they have been seeking the truth about the shed and who ever has been talking to them has skirted around the subject by saying:-

It remains the case that all complaints procedures relating to this matter have been exhausted both internally within the Council and externally.

by asking you to shoot the messenger again.

You should be questioning the actions of the Principal Planning Officer, the Planning Manager, the Head of Development Services, Customer Advocacy and the Council’s Corporate Lead over the last few years rather than asking me to review the comparatively new Complaints Policy 2019v1.5 – Section 7.

All I have to say it is that it is not relevant to Planning Control and the interpretation of approved plans and drawings.
Kind regards
Michael Dawson

Attachment:- Shooting the Messenger.

Dear Ms Abbott

I hope by my email to you of the 15th May, that I have made my point sufficiently clear, that none of my emails or letters to South Tyneside Council have ever been abusive and now by this letter, I want to establish that your email of the 29th April, falsely accused me of being an unreasonable and persistent complainant. It is very simply done:

1. there has only ever been one complaint to the Chief Executive that his staff have been giving misinformation to the Local Government Ombudsman and one complaint that his staff have been lying to the Ombudsman is a singularity.
   His staff’s refusal to admit that a structure is nearly 3m than taller than what had been approved for more than seven years, is a far better example of persistent behaviour (from an email thanking the Planning Manager for conceding that the shed was taller than the approved plan allowed 3-Mar-14 to today);
2. it is entirely reasonable to claim that a structure is taller than what had been approved when it is nearly 3 meters taller than planned. The approved drawings/plans say it should have a height of 15.5m at the river end but it has been built to a height 18.2m at that point. While UK Docks and the Council separately held drawings that showed that landward end of the shed was 15.5m, it was a mistake on both, neither were approved and it was probably a fraudulent misrepresentation say either represented the approved height.

It was the Council’s Corporate Lead who said that there is no evidence of the Council giving misinformation to the Ombudsman and to justify that falsehood she had to imply that it was I who was being dishonest and she did this by accusing me of being a persistent and unreasonable complainant by reference to Section F of an earlier version of the code you sent me on 29-Apr-21.

She ignored the advice given to me by a solicitor and she carried out her threat to section me in October 2016:

The Solicitor’s view, off the record, was that UK Docks, in saying they were building the shed to approved plans when they were not, was probably criminal fraud but the police were unlikely to act on a planning issue. He also suggested a civil court may not be be the best way forward but he did say that in his view we needed to raise a new complaint. The new complaint being the misinformation and/or misrepresentation by the Local Authority in supplying information to the LGO.

M Dawson, 2nd & 3rd September 2016

On April the 29th you sent me the current version to the code, Complaints Policy 2019v1.5, and an instruction referring me to Section 7 on ‘Dealing with Unreasonable Behaviour’ and adding, in your view, my behaviour was unreasonable because:

• persistent refusal to accept a decision; persistent refusal to accept explanations;
• continuing to contact us without presenting new and relevant information;
• Adopting a ‘scattergun’ approach: pursuing a complaint or complaints with the authority and, at the same time, with a Member of Parliament/a councillor/ independent auditor/the Standards Board/local police/solicitors/the Local Government Ombudsman/the press.

I will deal with your last accusation first: even Mrs Johnson did not repeat the comment about ‘scatter gunning’ when she carried out her threat , and by the way I have not written to any independent auditor, the Standards Board or the local police and whoever told you that I had done so, was simply lying.
Shed and Corruption – Part 4 or select page 2.