To avoid answering the question of the planned height (it is 12.8m or 15.5m depending on the end to which one is referring) of the slipway enclosure, built by UK Docks on River Drive, the Chief Executive appointed his Corporate Lead, Mrs Hayley Johnson to instigate a means whereby he hoped the Council could avoid the question for the rest of his tenure.
She did this by saying the Council had not misled the Ombudsman and if I complained about it they would not answer any letter or email. They would put it on file. She packed out her response with many spurious reasons and some lies the most offensive being the hypocrisy that I had misused their complaints procedure, when the misuse began by the Council with the Planning Officer avoiding the question of height when asked about it in September 2013.
Mrs Johnson removed some of reasons but not the worst lies and carried out her threat. I, quite reasonably maintain that she did not have the authority to carry out the threat unless the Chief Executive vested her with it and for that he would need some legal advice.
Hence the email below which lies unanswered on file as does my response to her rather offensive letter of the 1st August. This is an abuse of their complaints procedure and they misuse it to restrict complaints about noise, Sunday Working and the conduct of their Staff and Councillors.
These are logically distinct from our complaint that the enclosure is bigger than planned!
—– Original Message —–
From: Mick Dawsonmick.dawson@theharbourview.co.uk
To: Michaela HamiltonMichaela.Hamilton@southtyneside.gov.uk
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2016 9:56 PM
Subject: Fw: Complaint: 248789 – Inappropriate Development on River Drive
Dear Michaela,
South Tyneside Council and the Local Government Ombudsman
Please excuse me for writing directly to you. I’ve copied you the letter I wrote to Haley Johnson today. I assume you have access to my letter to the Chief Executive 8-Jul and her reply to me 1-Aug.
She has done exactly as my solicitor predicted she would do, she said I had submitted repeated complaints, essentially regarding the same issue after the complaints process has been exhausted. There are only two complaints and I did not raise the one to which she has referred. That was 253539 and raised at Mr Mansbridge’ request and was about enforcement. I do not consider the first closed closed until the Council come clean on the planned height. As far as I am concerned Mr Atkinson conceded the argument about the planned height to me in February 2014.
I did ask her if she had reviewed the original complaint of the 10-Jan-2014 and the correspondence following it up to 13-February, as she would have realised that Mr Atkinson had effectively agreed that the shed was 2.7m too high. He and I were discussing the height of the shed and he could no longer maintain the pretence that 8296/14 referred to the road end. I even put a different spin on the ‘not to scale’ misrepresentation.
One only has to look at the drawing to see that it is:
a) the river end (note about access for boats) and
b) has a height to width ratio of about 5:4 which corresponds with 15:12 not 18:12 whatever the scale of the drawing.
Why he went on to say that it was not to scale, was not only irrelevant but appears to be a piece of misinformation designed to get himself out of an embarrassing situation.
He had already said that the gable was the road end.
My main gripe with her is that she said, “There is no evidence to suggest that there has been deliberate misinformation provided by Council officers to the Local Government Ombudsman.” in spite of me giving pages in great detail to the Chief Executive. Why has she used the word deliberate – surely giving misinformation is a deliberate act in itself?
This is just adding misinformation, and is perhaps intended for the LGO, and we will end up with “The Council have told you that there is no evidence of deliberate misinformation etc.” c.f. #35 where a piece of misinformation was repeated in spite of my protestations to Mr Mansbridge (a few times I think, including the time I advised him that the drawing he was using showed both ends to be 15.5m).
- In January 2014 the Council wrote to Mr Dawson about this. It said the overall structure on the plans is 15.5 metres at the land end … Since then the Council has consistently told Mr Dawson the shed is the correct height.
Ms Johnson finished by saying she considers the matter closed and should I continue to repeat historic complaint issues in your contacts, the Council will consider imposing formal restrictions on your contact with the Council.
The threat of a Section F Notice which you administer is why I have sent you this covering letter and a copy of my response. It is not clear with what authority she speaks. I consider the matter of the Council misinforming the LGO to be at least a complaint at Stage 3 level, which I believe is your
department.
Has Ms Johnson replaced Mr Mansbridge at stage 2 of the Councils Complaint Procedure?
Kind regards
Michael Dawson