Complained to them in 2015 about the goings on between South Tyneside Council and UK Docks – received an out of office reply then nothing.

Then two schemes from the Agents: Gary Craig Building services Ltd. were pushed through a Planning Committee meeting on 01-Feb-16 which was not minuted; *

• ST/0461/14/FUL – UK Docks Expansion, Case Officer, Gary Simmonette ;
• ST/0746/15/FUL – Demolition of the Beacon, Case Officer, David Rogerson.

UK Docks went unreported but the demolition of the Beacon was. It seems the total close-down of any commentary about UK Docks by South Tyneside Council was then complete by spring 2016.

This was first achieved by misinforming the Local Government Ombudsman and when this did not guarantee 100% success an ‘omerta’ was put in force by the person administering the complaints system but she had to say that there was no misinformation given to the Ombudsman to justify it.  See items 25 and after on the list of evasions.

The first items (< 5 ) were from other residents as I was more interested in why was it there at all, I naturally assumed that they would have had approval before they invested in moving their entire business to River Drive. It was spread across 3 sites (4 including Sunderland) before their eviction from Tyne Dock.

My interest  this stems from item 5 where the 2 of the 3 representatives were Director and Procurement Officer of HBHydraulics. They do not seem to have a presence on the Tyne these days but in 2013 their living was dependant on ship repair yards, of which there were only two left on the Tyne and one was UK Docks.

Neither of the two representatives declared an interest when they were elected to the Committee of the Tyne Gateway Assn six weeks before and they appeared to be singing from the same hymn sheet as the Planning Officer who told us that the shed had been approved .

Mick Dawson
The 3rd Representative