On the 2nd May, I as good as told the Head of Development Services, that his staff had admitted that the shed was not built plan see particularly the last paragraph.
I referred Mr Mans bridge to my complaint of the 4th April that his staff were giving mis information to the Gazette about the height. I then wrote and told Mr Mansbridge, on the 9th May, that the shed was actually taller than planned and asked him to send out a revised letter to the residents of Greens Place and Harbour View.
To avoid doing this, he replaced the Planning Manager’s complaint 248789 by overwriting it with 253539 and after another meeting where the unauthorised drawings were presented again asked me whether I wished to proceed with 253539. The meeting had been a trap.
It was significant the question of the height of shed was avoided altogether in their so called ‘third’ stage response and it is more than a coincidence that the Ombudsman did not mention the height in her first draft of her findings either.
Originally posted as a reference to the duplicity of the Planning Manager it has been reposted as a criticism of the Head of Development Services.
Mr M Dawson Greens Place
Date: 2nd June 2014 Tyne and Wear
South Shields
NE33 2AQ
Our Ref: GM/LB - 253539 Your Ref: None
1. My reference to Stages 1 and 2 i.e. 248789*, is missing.
Dear Mr Dawson
STAGE 2 COMPLAINT – Development at UK Docks Ltd, River Drive
1am writing in response to your letters of 2nd and 9th May regarding the above.
2. The letter of the 2nd May was about his, and his staff, the abuse of the complaints prodedure: If I had followed the suggestions by these officers there would have been no admission bythe planning office that the slipway shed on River Drive had not been built to plan and it illbehoves you to refer my email to the formal complaints procedure as well.
3. The letter of the 9th May was about his response to our Petition in which he repeats the lie about the height: The approved dimensions of the steelwork are: Proposed height 15.5m at the River Drive end.
You have made it clear in your letter of 2nd May that you were not happy that I referred your email of 4th April 2014 on to my Planning Department. I apologise if you feel that was inappropriate, however, this is required under the Council’s complaints procedure and allows for the appropriate escalation of cases to Head of Service level should the operational department not provide a satisfactory response. I appreciate that this can come across as somewhat process driven however it is important for consistency and helps should you continue to be dissatisfied having exhausted the process and wish to refer the matter to the Local Government Ombudsman. For this reason I am treating this as a Stage2 response.
4. The email of the 4th April was passed back to his Planning Manager. It was to inform him that that some-one was giving misinformation about the shed to the local paper: To cap it all there was an article in the local paper on Apr 1st showing most flattering photograph of the offending shed saying that it was only 36ft high. The author of the article may have got away with saying that in September but not now. You should know that it is over 50 ft high and that is what we have been saying for months now. It’s planned height is about 42ft.
In your letter of 2nd May you highlight that the slipway is operational yet the shelter is incomplete. You correctly refer to a letter I sent to one of your neighbours in which I highlighted my intention to instruct UK Docks Ltd to cease use of the shelter until works were compete. This is something I continue to feel strongly about. I have met with the owners and senior officers at UK Docks to make them aware of my views on this matter and have followed that up in writing. When I met with them, they made it clear that to stop using the slipway would have a significant detrimental impact on their business. The difficulty I have is that the established use of the slipway is for general industrial purposes and in effect they can quite lawfully undertake works to repair boats on the slipway and across the entire site.
5. His difficulty was that his Planning Manager was agreeing with the protestors that the shed was nearly 3m too tall but telling everyone else that it was not too tall. One only has to look an approved drawing to see where the truth lies.
Your letter of 9th May focuses on the dimensions of the shelter as being built and in particular your view that, as well as being wider than approved, the shelter is also 3m taller. You refer in particular to Drawing 8296/14. That would represent a significant deviation from the approved scheme.
I have investigated this and referred to the approved drawing cross-referenced with the dimensions taken on site by my planning staff. The height of the shelter does not significantly deviate from the approved scheme as you have suggested. The approved dimensions that I state are those which are annotated on drawing number 8296/1A which was submitted to the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation on 11 April 1996. That must be the plan which the Development Corporation was referring to when it granted planning permission in 1996. The height of the steelwork at River Drive is clearly marked as 12.5m+3m (total 15.5m). The difference in height of the slipway over the length of the shelter is marked as 96.1-93.444 (2.656m). 15.5m plus 2.656m gives the height at the riverside of 18.156m. I attach a A1 size copy of this plan.
6. Drawing 8296/1A was never approved because it also shows the river end to be 12.5m+3m (total 15.5m) at the riverside. 15.5m minus 2.7m gives 12.8m at River Drive. Mr Mansbridge has been misinformed, the only approved drawing with dimensions from 1996 gives 108.8 -96.1m gives 12.7m at River Drive.
The drawing you have referred to [8296/14] was submitted in discharge of condition 4 relating to the fixing details of the end panels. The engineer also chose to include a gable elevation of the structure on the same drawing but that was not drawn to scale. If it would help I would be more than happy to meet with you to show you the relevant plans and elevation as this may clear up this specific point.
7. The engineer did drew 8296/14 so nearly to scale that Mr Dawson was able to calculate the width and height as 12.2m and 15.6m respectively. Mr Mansbridge was repeating a lie when he said that it was not drawn to scale.
I do hope that my letter adequately covers the various points in your letters of the 2nd May and 9th May.
8. he has avoided the points raised in both those letters and the one of the 4th April because the shed is 2.7m taller than permitted (= true) and wished to repeat the lie that it was the approved height (= not true) .
If you are dissatisfied with my response, you may wish to move to Stage 3 of the Council’s Corporate Complaints Procedure by writing to the Chief Executive, South Tyneside Council, Town hall, Westoe Road, South Shields, NE33 2RL.
9. I did write to to the Chief Executive on July 7th: I am writing to you because I am not satisfied with the the Head of Development Services’ response to my request that he explain why work on an illegal building continues despite many requests that it stops until the planning issues are resolved .
10. I also told Michaela Hamilton whom he had appointed to answer on his behalf: Please be aware that I did not raise this complaint, it was raised by one of Mr Mansbridge staff .
11. Her response was to avoid the question of the height of the shed altogether, 25-Sep-14.
Yours sincerely
George Mansbridge
Head of Development Services
Town Hall & Civic Offices
Telephone: 0191 427 7000Westoe Road
Fax No: 0191 27 7171
South Shields
Tyne and Wear, NE33 2RL
* the Planning Manager had replaced the complaint which asked, as the shed was too big, why was there no retrospective planning permission? With ” see email to planning 14/1/14. Mr Dawson asking various questions relating to the ongoing development at the slipway, River Drive, South Shields”. It became 248789 which was again over written by 253539.