Greens Place and Corruption

Detail of Update

March 2023

No. 71 Greens Place and Corruption.

Following my partner’s and my complaint about the overbearing nature of the planned extension of 71 Greens Place, the extent of the new partition wall was reduced little but when the neighbour came to building it, he reverted to his original plan for the wall of first floor patio.

He also increased the height of the second floor along the partition wall to make a rear second floor patio. A second floor patio was added to the front at the second floor level but as that did not have any impact on our amenity there was no complaint about it. It has a balcony from which one can view the River Tyne and serves as a reminder that planning control can be easily waved aside for favoured developers.

It was to the rear that we suffered a great loss of amenity and it was made worse by building the upper section of the party wall a meter higher than planned. It surrounded a second floor roof top patio but our main complaint was that the building inspector had made himself unavailable while the wall along the side of the first floor patio garden was completed.

When we complained, quite justly about Mr Haig’s original plan to his rebuild of his extension, the Council said that the wall that extended to within a couple of metres of the rear of his property, should be replaced by a less imposing fence of about half its length.

Figure 1: Drawing 000 from ST/0966/12/FUL

When it became obvious that Mr Haig had reverted back to his original plan we naturally complained to the Council about it but it soon became clear that nothing was going to be done about it.

The picture shows our side of the Haig’s first floor patio wall and I’d like to draw your attention to the fact the Senior Enforcement Officer, Mr Eggenton has already suggested that it was allegation to claim it was a wall rather then a fence in February 2013.

He continued to maintain defence of his errant building inspector and the others in the planning department of the Town Hall who failed to notice that Mr Haig had ignored the main condition of the application ST/0996/12/FUL. The view from the window at the top of No. 70’s stairs, showing the Roman Fort and Haig’s wall, was known to the Council and I made sure of that and equally determined, the was attempt made to hide the breach of the main condition, made by the Senior Enforcement Officer.

Mr Martin Eggenton had two get out clauses, the first was to describe our claim to be an allegation:- Alleged building works not in accordance with approved plan ST/0966/12/FUL.

As you can see, a brick wall is clearly not a wooden fence, and secondly the application was approved on the condition that the wall was replaced by a fence to be about half the length of the now existing wall dropping in height about one third of the way along the garage roof below:- the photograph of the wall again.

Drawing 000 is the approved drawing shown in the page above so it was a more like fraudulent misrepresentation, than a simple lie to have said:- The site has been visited and it is apparent that the works are in accordance with the planning permission granted. As such there is no breach of planning control against which the Council can take any action.

I repeat, it was an outright lie to say that the wall in accord with the planning permission and he had hidden the lie when he said there were no breaches of planning control against which any action could have been taken and particularly that of the building inspector appointed to see that there were no breaches in planning control.

There are two sides to every party wall and the architect specified quite clearly how the first floor extension of No. 71 and the existing wall of No. 70 was be bridged by flashing. See ‘Detail of flashing, pictured right, that should have been placed to stop the ingress rain etc. into the gap. The flat roof is gently sloped to take the run off rainwater from the pitched roof and the extent of the flashing is clearly indicated. From where the pitched roof meets the roof top of No. 70 to where the latter finishes at the end of 70’s first floor extension.

There is no flashing at all and Mr Haig thought that if he built the wall with 6-8 inch gap between his wife’s property and No. 70 he could void the party wall agreement. In this he was entirely successful because it would have required considerable expense from the owner of No 70, Mr Dawson, to enforce it and he had already spent a considerable sum in getting an agreement because Mr Haig’s solicitor had been told that a party wall agreement was already in place. It was simply a lie and remains a valid pointer to the way things were to unfold.

All this would have been perfectly clear to any visitor to the development, including the building inspector, Mr Telford but he turned a blind eye to it. I had gone on to point this out to the Ombudsman but I was referred back to South Tyneside Council.

This rather confirmed my view that the Local Government Ombudsmen and Women were too easily swayed by the misinformation given to then by a Council’s Officers. I had already been through all this, with first the Council and then the Ombudsman. By, all this, I mean the overbearing nature and loss of amenity but, I was asked by Ms Hoy of Customer Advocates, 13-Nov-13, to put in another complaint if I wished to pursue my case.

I realised that to raise another complaint would be a waste of time because her email confirmed when she wrote that they had been giving misinformation to the Ombudsman:- “You had noted three points you remained unhappy with, please note that point one had been decided by the Ombudsman and we will not address that point further following their decision.

My main complaint was that the planning officer had not followed guidelines given in SPD9 but her Planning Manager said the guide lines had been followed and that was why I realised that another complaint would fail on two counts:- *

1. South Tyneside Council were quite happy to give misinformation to the Ombudsman. It was not until another complaint, the one about the resiting of UK Docks ship/boat yard, by many including myself, that I took the trouble to consult a solicitor;

2. In both cases planning officers and their managers were prepared to accept a non-approved drawing in place an approved drawing, please see, Prologue to Shed and Corruption.

The two cases were subtly different because the architect, Dr Martin redrew the partition wall, without the fence, to match what his client had built after the event while South Tyneside Council had recovered from their archive a drawing produced in 1996 to hide the truth about about a structure built one and a half decades later.

The case against the shed on UK Docks’ shed also started with a reference to Mr Telford:- “My colleague Mike Telford (Snr. Building Control Surveyor tel: 4247435) is dealing with the Building Regulations application. You may be aware the Building Regulations system is there to ensure that development is constructed in accordance with modern day building standards, they are not dealing with residential amenity issues such as outlook as this would be a planning issue.

The Snr. Building Control Surveyor was joined by Mr K Haig some months later with those trying to hide the fact that UK Docks had been built nearly 3m taller than permitted and you can now see why I brought the Prologue to to Shed and Corruption to Mr St John’s attention.

It was in 2016 that I discovered what would have happened if I had taken Ms Hoy’ advice in late 2013 re our complaint about Mrs and Mrs Haig’s luxury residence in Greens Place. Amongst other things I would have been accused of making repeated complaints:- “submitted repeated complaints, essentially regarding the same issue, after our complaints process has been exhausted.

Michael Dawson,
16th March 2023

* it was after a neighbour in Greens Place had questioned the height of UK Docks’ shed and I followed her with a full complaint after discovering the Council were colluding with them by maintaining the fraudulent misrepresentation of the shed’s permitted height that I learnt that how determined South Tyneside Council were in their attempts to hide the truth behind favoured developments:-

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.