In the case of UK Docks the Planning Manager, Mr Atkinson had claimed in the second stage of my complaint that the complaint the shed was not 2.7m too tall by quoting from an error on a drawing drawing that had not been approved, again saving Mr Egginton the bother of having to issue another enforcement order. This time, it was on UK Docks, see page 4 of Part 1:- “Approved Drawings. The drawing that was submitted on 11th April 1996 with the application is numbered 8296/1A. That shows the overall height of the structure as 15.5m above the foundation level at the landward end.
2
The first view, above, is from the approved version of the party wall and was taken from ST/0966. In his second drawing the architect Mr J Martin had not only replaced the fence with a wall but raised the height of roof edge at the second floor level from of a few inches to four foot. These variations from plan were reported to the Council but because the building inspector Mr Telford made himself unavailable and calls to the planning office were not passed to building control the concealment of these facts went on until well after UK Docks started on their shed in front of Wellesley Court.
Mr Telford was the third link, besides Messrs Haig and Watson, between ST/0966/12/FUL, 71 Greens Place, and ST/1146/13/COND, the enclosure or shed on UK Docks slipway where I only referred to the lack of building control rather than him personally in my letter to you in March 2021, please see Page 2 of part 1 of the Shed and Corruption series:-
Mr Cunningham did not answer your question, he remained silent and referred you to the complaints procedure and as you will see they have tried and tested method of manipulating it to hide bad planning practice, the lack of building control and any hint of corruption. The process ends with a referral to the Local Government Ombudsman and they are easily conned.
As early as June 2013 there was a clue to where the centre of corruption lay in South Tyneside Council lay, and that was in the response to a letter to the Chief Executive of the 3rd of that month: The officer who was tasked to respond, said correctly on the 18th June 2013
“Your main concern is that your objections regarding “privacy, outlook, over dominance, overshadowing and the effect on the integrity and character of the street scene and listed buildings” were not given sufficient weight and that the proposed development directly contravened many of the objectives set out in SPD9.
Her conclusion, which would be presented to the Ombudsman, completely misrepresented the situation:
“I am sorry that I cannot uphold your complaint but I hope you feel that this response adequately addresses the issues you have raised. If you remain dissatisfied with the way the Council has handled your complaint you may now approach the Local Government Ombudsman for advice. I enclose a leaflet explaining more about the Ombudsman’s role.
With her last statement the Performance and Information Officer had completely overwritten the 3 stages of the complaint.
Michaela Hamilton was writing on behalf of the Chief Executive Mr Martin Swales and I did not write to the Ombudsman because by the time I had received her whitewash of the complaint against the Haigs, they had instructed the builder to contruct, the partition wall between nos 70 and 71 Greens Place to a different plan to the one that had been approved.
Both her and my arguments had been overwritten by the Council in allowing Mr Haig with the help of his agent, to build the partition to a non-approved plan. The building inspector, Mr M Telford made himself unavailable while this was being and to quote: “Instead of gathering evidence Mr Eggington did nothing but the architect Mr J Martin obligingly redrew the side elevations to save Mr Egginton having to go to the bother of slapping an enforcement order on Mr Haig.