Exhausted by the shear volume of misinformation ladled out by STC and the comment made on the website a couple of weeks ago brings us full circle to the beginning of 2020. Wheels within wheels which I have previously described as Cycles of Deceit.
On January 8th 2020, Mr Buck emailed me at the harbourview.co.uk from the Office of the MP for South Shields requesting my home phone number to give to his colleague, Mr Keith Palmer and I was immediately suspicious as I had been in contact with her office for a few years and no-one had asked me for my home phone number.
I had met Emma at a meeting in 2016 and we both agreed that South Tyneside Council were being evasive about development on the slipway off River Drive that belonged to UK Docks and I had been corresponding with her Office Manager, Rebecca Heath, about it until I received a message from Emma, very late in 2019:-
Date: 23/12/2019 (16:09:38 BST) To: mick.dawson@theharbourview.co.uk Cc: Cllr Angela Hamilton, Nicola Robason, Cllr David Francis, Alison Hoy Good afternoon Mick, I am aware Angela and David are dealing with this, please can you let me know if there is anything needed from me. Best wishes, hope you have a lovely Christmas Emma
I thanked her for her response and added:- “I hope to be back in touch when Parliament resits.
Congratulations in retaining your seat. All the best for the New Year.
I never got back to her because I became aware over the Christmas break that both Emma and Cllr Hamilton were having trouble with the Constituency Labour Party and other Cllrs under the control of the then Leader of the Council, Cllr Malcolm and please notice that Mr Buck was not included in the people dealing with our complaint about the shed but I was curious to know what he was up to so gave him my home phone number and laid down a condition:- “it may be better to use my personal email box daw50nmdj@hotmail.co.uk unless Keith wants to talk about corruption at the Town Hall, UK Docks etc.
I discovered the following Monday, the 13th, when I returned Mr Palmer’s call from Emma’s Office that corruption at the Town hall and UK Docks were the last things he wanted to talk so naturally I asked Emma what was going on:- I answered a call today from a Mr Keith Palmer on 01914271240 and we spoke and I gathered he did not wish to consider any further correspondence from me and suggested that because I now lived away you/he would not be able to deal with correspondence because of parliamentary rules. You and I both know this to be nonsense as the shed is on your patch.
As he had also gone on about expensive litigation, vexatious complaints etc., I attached a copy of the letter I had received from Peter Dunn and Co, and next morning thought to explain why I had attached it:- “I gave my phone details to you(r) partner to pass to a Mr Keith Parmer, he has them and I spoke to him yesterday on 0191 4271240. Is it safe to assume he is your Office Manager in South Shields and we should write to him on any issues we have with UK Docks? The case ZA4803, please see attached, and it has been with you for many years although it was passed to Anne Marie Trevelyan MP while I was lodging in Amble.
Mr Palmer rang from Emma’s office while I was out which was why I returned his call and he made it very clear that corruption at that Town Hall and UK Docks was the last thing he wanted to discuss.
4
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.