The first part of that statement is nonsense and the second is lie. There is a note on the drawing which says:- “strips to draw back to each side to allow access for boats” and please bear in mind that boats enter the shed from the river. If the drawing was not to scale how else could I (Mr X) have calculated the dimensions of the river end of the shed so accurately.
Late in 2014 I attempted to get my complaint about the shed back on track with the
admission that the local residents were correct about the shed’s height:- FBR248789
in a letter to the author of the Stage 3 response:- CX253539 but failed. From experience, I was aware that South Tyneside Council were giving misinformation to the Local Government Ombudsman so that a protest about a favoured development, would fail – see 71 Greens Place above.
I then decided to get in touch with with the MP for South Shields before I was trapped into another cycle of deceit with regard to UK Docks’ shed and discovered that she was having the same trouble as I with UK Docks and there was a case file labelled ZA4803.
It soon became clear that they were feeding both her and the Ombudsman the same misinformation. # 22 and 23 – Local Government Ombudsman: 15th March 2015:-
“Mr X says the shed is also 3 metres higher than shown in the 1996 plans. He says a scale measurement from the plans shows a total height of 12.75 metres at one end of the shed. The Council says the permitted height at this end is 15.5 metres and this is the height as built.
Only one statement can be true and if one cares to examine the drawings 8296/2 or /14 it is the one made by Mr X. Mr X wrote to his MP at that time, 31-Mar-15 but someone had noticed he had taken up lodgings in Amble and the case ended up with the MP for Berwick and Mr X saying to her office manager:-
“I have studied all the plans available and come to the conclusion that the cover is built 3 meters higher than planned and while the Head of Development Services says “That would represent a significant deviation from the approved scheme” you
will understand why the planning office are still saying that it is not too high.
Anne-Marie sized up the situation correctly and wrote to the Chief Executive within a week and took the courtesy of copying me her letter:-
“It relates to a boat shelter at Tyne Slipway, River Drive, South Shields which Mr Dawson me was constructed outside the remits of the approved plan, which was a stated height of 15.5m. According to my constituent, the actual height of the structure is some 3 metres higher, yet was signed off by the Council regardless.
I noticed that she had not been specific about which end of the shed should have the stated height of 15.5m and wrote and told her that it should be the river end and copied this information to the Chief Executive on the 9th June 15:-
“You have not specified that the stated height (15.5m) is of the river end of the shelter and it is likely that, Mr Swales, if he follows the arguments of the Planning Manager and the Head of Development Services before him, will say it refers to the road end.
Like everyone involved with the complaint of 10th January 2014, the Chief Executive had the choice of being honest about the shed’s height but he chose otherwise and we were accused of making allegations about the shelter and one does not have to dig very deeply to realise the Council was corrupt from top to bottom because the respondent, the Corporate Lead did not copy me into her response to Anne Marie on behalf of the Chief Executive.
6
It took six months to discover why, and that was because she was accusing the local residents and I of making allegations to hide the fact that it was the Council who was giving out misinformation by saying:-
“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.
I took the trouble to describe this in 2021, in great detail in Shed and Corruption – Part 4 and it is on page 8 of Part 4 that you will discover why Mr Swales, the Chief Executive at that time chose his Corporate Lead to “ shoot the messenger”.
It was in response to the comment, 8-Jul-16:-
“I ask you to look again at this because there is a clear contradiction between what the Council were telling the LGO and what is known. Why your staff should misrepresent the facts to the LGO is for you to determine. That they have misinformed the LGO should be admitted and corrected and that is what this letter is about.
He had no wish to admit why his staff were fraudulently misrepresenting the height of UK Docks’ shed or to explain why they were doing it and his Corporate Lead, Hayley Johnson had already committed herself to backing the fraud about the shed, in her response to Anne-Marie, the year before, and she virtually accused the local residents and I of lying about the shed’s height when she went on to say :-
“ There is no evidence to suggest that there has been deliberate misinformation provided by Council officers to the Local Government Ombudsman.
Deliberate Misinformation
The removal of the dimensions on the left hand edge of the drawing that accompanied the copy of 8296/1B may not have been deliberate but the Town Hall meeting where we were misinformed by the Principal Planning Officer was:-
Michael, I took no minutes as is customary at these informal meetings. For your record I am sure all would agree : 1. The Exec representatives of the Group accepted that the construction had been made legally as per drawings seen
I had requested a copy of the minutes and got none and that was one of the reasons why I called my review of the timeline shared with the Council – Shed and Corruption.
By February 2014 we were discussing the height of the shed, the extra width having been dismissed in January and he was being truthful when he said:-
“the current structure is not built to “approved” plans.
Mr Atkinson’s response, made on the 13th February 2014, was the main document discussed at the meeting held in the South Shields Sailing Club where we decided to raise the Petition and I was asked to thank the Planning Manager for his honesty:-
7
“Thank you also for confirming that the Slipway Shed is not built to the approved 1996 plans.
The application for ST/1146/13/COND was made a few weeks after we first protested about the height of the shed. It referred to a drawing, 8296/14 which was made a few weeks before the first frames that gave rise to our protests were erected, 5-Sep-14. It was approved in October 2013 though the details including the reference to 8296/14 were not published until after the fateful meeting of 25th November 2013.
The sequence of events becomes significant when one realises that drawing 8296/14 was drawn in August 2013, the cropped copy of 8296/2 was sent to the Town Hall and forwarded the local residents on the 6th or 9th September 2013. It was attached to 8296/1B and both disappeared from view when it was noticed that 1B was an amendment to 1A made in 1997.
Shortly after my exchange with the Planning Manager, I informed Mr Mansbridge about:
- a misleading leading article in the local press, 1-Apr-14;
To cap it all there was an article in the local paper on Apr 1st showing most flattering photograph of the offending shed saying that it was only 36ft high. The author of the article may have got away with saying that in September but not now. You should know that it is over 50 ft high and that is what we have been saying for months now. It’s planned height is about 42ft. - abuse of the complaints system, 2-May-14;
I will also ask at the same time that you do not refer this letter to one of your staff to raise a stage 2 complaint on my behalf. I understand you did this with my email of the 4th April which I take to be an abuse of the complaints procedure. - he responds to our Petition with the repetition of Mr Atkinson’s misrepresentation of the plans, 9-May-14 ; The approved dimensions of the steelwork are: Proposed height 15.5m at the River Drive end.
By those responses it was obvious that the Planning Manager had been duplicitous in agreeing with me as a representative of the protestors about the shed and telling his manager something completely different. The Head of Development Services response to the email of the 1st April was to pass it back to his Planning Manager to answer. It was never answered. Mr Atkinson wrote on the 25th April:- Dear Mr Dawson, I’m sorry for the delay. Mr Mansbridge is hoping to get a comprehensive response off to residents by the end of next week Regards Gordon Atkinson.
His response to my observations that his staff were abusing the complaints system or procedure, May 2nd was to ask one of his staff for a new one to be raised at Stage 2:- Letter to GM following previous letter dated 4th April. Not happy with G. Atkinsons response at Stage 1. Letter to be dealt with at Stage 2.
Please note that the complaint 248789 had already reached its second stage by 28th January 2014 and Mr Mansbridge said of my comments on the abuse of the complaints system in a letter dated 2nd June 2014 under a new reference number, 253539:-
You have made it clear in your letter of 2nd May that you were not happy that I referred your email of 4th April 2014 on to my Planning Department. I apologise if you feel that was inappropriate, however, this is required under the Council’s complaints procedure and allows for the appropriate escalation of cases to Head of Service level should the operational department not provide a satisfactory response.
8