Copy Solicitors’ Letter

26 January 2016

Dear Mr. Dawson,

Re: Yourself, South Tyneside Council and the Local Government Ombudsman
I write further to the above matter, our meeting on 12th January 2016 and your email letter to me dated Friday 22nd January 2016.
I perhaps should have clarified matters following our meeting by an email to you.
My view is that we need to raise a “new complaint” so that the Local Authority shall deal
with it, and if not, the Local Government Ombudsman can deal with it. The new complaint
being the misinformation and/or misrepresentation by the Local Authority in supplying
information to the Local Government Ombudsman. Hopefully this can be dealt with as a
“new” matter. If this complaint is not dealt with by South Tyneside Council, and it may
well be that they say it relates to the old complaint, then I believe it justifies going straight
to the Local Government Ombudsman.
Therefore the draft letter to me should incorporate references to the information given by
South Tyneside Council to the Local Government Ombudsman in his investigation.

Yours sincerely
AT

I did attempt a draft and it stood at about 11 pages for about a month while the Council were processing the expansion of the slipway shed, rebuild of the offices etc. through their office in Jarrow.
UK Docks had no permission for the shed, and even the Council agreed with us about that but they had contrived to hide the fact that it was taller than permitted with the help of the Planning Office and the Head of Development Services.
I decided to shorten the draft and send it to the Chief Executive because it was he, after all, he who had appointed someone to ‘shoot the messenger’ in mid 2015. We been accused of making allegations about the shed’s height by one of the Council’s Corporate Leads in an attachment to a letter to the MP for Berwick, Anne-Marie Trevelyan:-

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.

The bulk of the enquires were about the height of the shed which the Council either ignored, denied or lied when they said that it had been conformed to (in accord with) an approved and I concluded my letter to the Chief Executive:-

I have been advised you may well say that all this relates to an old complaint and so I will ask you for a “new” complaint based on this letter and if you will not deal with it then the Local Government Ombudsman can deal with it. The Council’s “Complaint’s Procedure” is not appropriate, it has failed. It has failed not only me but all the local residents and Petitioners as well.

A complaint was never raised!

Full letter – https://theharbourview.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Advice-26-Jan-16-Peter-Dunn-and-Co.pdf