Shed and Corruption – Part 20
From: mick.dawson@theharbourview.co.uk
Date: 02/05/2023 (11:29:41 BST)
To: Alison Hoy
Cc: Nicola Robason, Emma Lewell-Buck MP, Jennifer Brooks
Bcc: +20
1 Attachment: DeceitandD-2-May-23.pdf (129 KB)
Dear Alison,
Please accept my apologies for not copying the attached document Deceits and Dishonesty at the same time as it was posted to ‘the harbourview’ as Part 20 of the Shed and Corruption. I noticed a date was wrong and after calling you for getting a date wrong, though(t) it better to check them all again and with care.
Regards,
Mick Dawson
Amble
2nd May 2023
Dear Alison
Deceit and Dishonesty
On 13th April 2023, a comment against the post on theharbourview.co.uk, titled, Threat: Simon Buck, 26-Feb-20 was made:- “Will you just give it a rest mate!
Sorry Alison, no, not until the Principal Planning Officer, Mr P Cunningham, admits he was being economical with the truth when he passed me plans that could be used to back the falsehood, made by him on 20-Dec-13, the height being compliant with an error:- “Mr Dawson – once again – I have measured this on site and have copied the 1996 plans across to you twice already (attached again for your use) and I have explained during our meeting that the base and height of the structure are compliant…this is the end of the matter as far as I am concerned.
Sorry no, not until the former Head of Development Services, Mr G Mansbridge, admits he had been wrongly advised when, in response to our Petition, he had lied when he said in April 2014:- “The approved dimensions of the steelwork are: Proposed height 15.5m at the River Drive end. South Tyneside Council had recovered an approved drawing from 1996 in September 2013 and the Planning Manager approved a drawing made in August 2013 that showed the shed was some 3m taller than planned in October 2013. 8296/14 also showed that the shed laid on footings made in 2001 to be wider than planned.
Sorry no, not until the Corporate Lead, Mrs H Johnson admits that she was in the wrong when she told the MP for Berwick in June 2015:- “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 matter was ultimately referred by way of complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman, the outcome of which was delivered on 14 April 2015.
It is not an allegation to claim a structure is nearly 3m taller than planned when it is nearly 3m taller than planned. Please see above, per Mr Mansbridge and an unknown Senior Planning Officer who repeated the fraud about the shed’s height to the Ombudsman.
I had taken your letter of the 9th December 2015 to a solicitor in Sunderland and gave him a potted history of the shed with particular reference to the drawings, approved and non-approved that had been provided by Maughan Reynolds Partnership Ltd over the years and it was he who suggested challenging what South Tyneside Council had told the Ombudsman.
Sorry no, not until the Corporate Lead, Mrs H Johnson again, admits that she was lying when she said in August 2016:- “There is no evidence to suggest that there has been deliberate misinformation provided by Council officers to the Local Government Ombudsman, Neither do I have evidence to question the content of the Ombudsman’s investigation.
1
Sorry no, not until you admit that you had been ill advised to make sure my observations made about the Stage 3 response in September 2016 were ignored:-
“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 yesterday. 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.
The first stage was where the complaint raised in January 2014, with evidence that the shed was both taller and wider than permitted, was referred back to the Tyne Gateway Assn instead of being addressed by the Principal Principal Planning Officer Mr P Cunningham.
The second stage was where the Planning Manager, Mr G Atkinson admitted that the objectors were correct about the shed but had seeded his response with a major piece of misinformation which was later to reappear in the Ombudsman’s findings.
The admission that the residents were right about the shed’s height was overwritten by the then Head of Development Services, Mr G Mansbridge by repeating the lie about its height, firstly in his response to the Petition and then in what was actually a third stage but presented to me, the other protestors and most importantly to the staff responsible for the Chief Executive’s response as a second response.
What was in fact a fourth stage was then submitted to the Ombudsman as a third stage and she chose to believe a Senior Planning Officer who had provided her with a faux Stage 3 response rather than a resident who had given her proof that the shed was taller than planned, cf paragraph 36.
I had been forced to refer the complaint about UK Docks’ shed being both wider and taller than permitted to the Ombudsman because South Tyneside Council was using a corrupted version of their complaints procedure to drive it forward and exhaust the complaints procedure internally through the various stages as outlined in the guide.
The practice is somewhat different and in the case of the shed there were four stages, not three, per the guide and that was why I called the review of the timeline I shared with the residents and the Council in 2021, Shed and Corruption.
The complaint flew through its fourth stage because the author failed to mention the height of the shed at all and the lie that it had been built to the approved height, reappeared in paragraph 33 of the Ombudsman’s Findings.