Covering Email for Contagion of Corruption
Dear Nicola,
The owner of the Beacon was granted permission to knock it down
and replace it with with a block of flats in February 2016 on condition
that he start work on it within three years. I’d spotted a flaw in the
plans submitted to the Committee and advised the Council about it
but it was deliberately withheld so permission was granted.
ST/0746/15/FUL, Discrepancies in Site Plans:- hopefully, the typos etc. have been corrected. *
There was one very obvious flaw in the plans drawn up by the agent for the owner of the Beacon public house on Greens Place in South Shields by GC Architectural Services. The plans were for its demolition and a block of flats to replace it and the flaw concerns the conversion of the former beer cellar into suitable living accommodation.
The two scripts say “Blocked Paved Frontage with Glass Block Light Wells and “Railings 1.2m Maxm High.
The flaw was that the architect had extended the curtilage of the former Beacon to include about a metre of the public path that ran the entire length of the front of the Beacon, and when the Planning Committee approved the plans in February 2016, they gave that piece of common land to a private developer.
A small piece of land but it presented South Tyneside Council with a big problem.
In 2016, the obvious shortcoming of the site plans for the development for 100-101 Greens Place were pointed out to the Council by reference to the most relevant of site plans of which there now 4 to confuse the issue and only one, the third, represents anything like truth. That numbers 100-101 Greens Place like, 66 to 70, do not include any part of the highway:-
- ST074615FUL Site Location 220715.pdf;
- ST074615FUL Site Location Plan 220715.pdf;
- ST074615FUL Site Location Plan Figure 2 220715.pdf;
- ST074615FUL Location Plan 2 Figure 3 220715.pdf.
I discovered when I watched the Planning Committee meeting of 12th January 2016 from the gallery in Jarrow Town Hall that the obvious flaw in Site Location Plan had not been communicated to them.
The second sketch was taken from one the site plans that were made available before the meeting and it clearly shows the curtilage of the public house does not include any of the pavement outlined by the dotted line.
One will see that only the third of the current site plans reflects the situation in 2016 and before we look them in detail, we will examine how the Council refined the process in the intervening years.
The first refinement was to avoid the planning committee altogether and they did this when they gave part of the English Coastal Path to the developer in his conversion of the former Garlands call centre into luxury flats.
* the site plans from page 2 have also been laid out differently to suit the blog as well.
1
When Messrs Simmonette and Mansbridge gave the footpath running along the river front, South from the Sea Cadets, to the developer of Utility Wise, they relied on an architect to provide misleading drawings, a fraudulent misrepresentation in legal speak, and this was not the first time it was practiced.
The first time I became aware of the practice some years earlier and concerned my neighbour, and in that case they relied his architect Dr J Martin to provide a misrepresentative drawing, They were Planning Officer Ms C Matten and the Planning Manager Mr G Atkinson.
The second time was when the local residents were provided with drawings, to falsely claimed that, UK Docks had permission for their shed by the Principal Planning Officer, Mr P Cunningham when they had not.
The approved drawings indicated that it should have had a built height at its river end of 15.5m but it had been built to a height of 18m.
His use of PROTECT was a give away that he was repeating a lie.
With the Beacon on Greens Place they were not able to persuade the agent, GC Architectural Services, to redraw the plans to include the immediate frontage so they had amend the plans, to place the light-wells by taking up some of the Public Right of Way, In-House. Please see page 2.
Re: the gift of part of the English Coastal Path to a developer was mentioned at the foot of Page 1 but may have been better to put the blame exactly where it lay, with the Planning Officer Mr G Simmonette.
It did however, require the agent, Mario Minchella Ltd to redraw the boundary of the site to include small dry dock and the public foot path running in front of 14-32 Long Row and the approval of the Head of Development Services, Mr G Mansbridge. Numbers 30-32 are the former Garlands Call centre and properties to the North of it.