Full copy of Shed and Corruption – Part 3 (with corrections to grammar and spelling):-
Dear Mr Rumney,
April 2021
Shed and Corruption – Part 3
One Sunday in December 2016 the residents of Greens Place were rather rudely awaken by a lot of noise from UK Docks and I did not pay it much attention because I assumed it was from the North Shields Fish Quay, located over the river. That was until I remembered that they did not normally land fish on Sundays being God-fearing people.
I still would not have bothered, had I not remembered that there had been a similar incident a few Sundays before and went along to check if the shed in use and if they were bringing a vessel into it.
They were using the shed but not beaching or launching a vessel and I remembered from my meeting with the Principal Planning Officer in 2013 that he had dismissed the 5th condition as he felt it that should have not been applied when the predecessors to UK Docks were granted permission to build the slipway enclosure.
It was only his opinion and not one sheared by anyone who lived within earshot of the shed! I was also aware that UK docks had been making a lot of noise in the months before and remembered that the Council had done nothing about it so I thought I would send them a reminder, 20-Dec-16:
From: Michael Dawson
Sent: 20 December 2016 15:53
To: Complaints
Subject: Re: Sunday Working by UK Docks, River Drive.
Dear Sir or Madam, This is the second time in a few weeks that they have been working on a Sunday. Please acknowledge this complaint as I wish to take the issue up with the ward Councillor who organised the meeting – see below.
Kind regards,
Michael Dawson
.
Like all complaints about the shed it was never acknowledged [1] and that is the principal method of corrupting the complaints procedure. A variation on [1] is to rewrite the complaint so that the responses do not appear as outright lies and that makes the responses more difficult with which to deal. There will be no record of the complaint against which to gauge the responses of any of or combination of the following:
- not acknowledged [not recorded];
- passed back to a closed conversation, meeting or external group [back-pass];
- neutered by an unfounded contradiction [contradiction];
- conflated with an exhausted complaint [conflation];
- forward pass or diverted into dead end [forward-pass].
Unlike Mr Cunningham with the complaint of the 10-Jan-2014, the 2nd planning officer did not have the option of passing it back to the Tyne Gateway Assn so he passed it forward to Customer Advocacy who said on behalf of Complaints and we see a classic example the forwarding of a complaint and the accompanying diversion:
Dear Mr Dawson
Further to the recent email from you regarding noise at the site of UK Docks . . . .
The correct action was to remind UK Docks of their responsibilities but the second officer chose otherwise.
In detail: the reminder of the 20th December was about Sunday working which is the 5th Condition, it does not mention noise at all and should have gone Mr Simmonette, the planning officer who
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backed the expansion of the yard, but he did not want to admit the breach of the 5th and it was diverted to Alison so he did not have to deal with it.
This was the second time that she had been misinformed by him. The first was explained in Shed and Corruption – Part 2: page 1:
The misdirection even included me in Alison Hoy’s email of December 2015 [Part 1: page 9]. Ms Hoy continued in her response 21-Dec-16:
This matter was considered and responded to by the Local Government Ombudsman in response to the earlier complaint they investigated on your behalf. Decision notice point 16 advised: The Authority’s view is that condition 5 should not have been imposed because the site already had the benefit of unrestricted working hours. I cannot comment on this.
The Ombudsman was wise not to comment. The Authority (Tyne and Wear Development Corporation) added condition 5 out of consideration of the residents who overlooked the site, those in Greens Place, and South Tyneside Council did not oppose it because they intended to see that the wasteland that was Velva Liquids was replaced with housing which was to become, Harbour View:
5. No works, other than the launching or beaching of vessels, shall take place within the shelter between the hours of 7pm and 7am Monday to Saturday and not at all on Sundays or Bank Holidays unless any written consent of variation is previously given by the Development Corporation as local planning authority.
It very clearly says the Development Corporation was the planning authority so how did paragraph 16 of the Ombudsman findings become:
# 16. The Authority’s view is that condition 5 should not have been imposed because the site already had the benefit of unrestricted working hours. I cannot comment on this. I do not know how the business operated in 1996 and it is too long ago for the Ombudsman to investigate.
Alison continued:
The matter was also considered in the committee report for the latest planning application for the site: 5.61 It would be unreasonable to seek to impose a planning condition restricting the working hours of the boat repair business or restricting the types of works associated with boat repairs at this application site as it is an established boat repair yard.
We are back with shed/site argument and getting nowhere. That was lifted from report recommending the expansion of UK Docks works, to be presented to the Planning Committee meeting of the 1st February 2016 – contact officer, Mr Gary Simmonette. # 5.61 appears to be the opinion of the author of the report, Mr Simmonette.
To clarify whatgoing on, one needs to refer to the time-line and here it may be better to
reproduce what lies at the heart of my response to Alison, 22-Dec-16
■ my complaint is about Sunday working;
■ no feedback reference number has been provided – I need one for escalation;
■ this has referred to you and not the Environmental Health Team;
■ ‘allegations of noise nuisance’ * – As I understand it, it was the noise that brought to
our attention that Sunday working was taking place.
■ para 16 – I complained to the LGO the Council were being inconsistent about condition 2 – I made no mention of Condition 5 – nor did I make any reference to condition 5 in my original complaint to the Council, 10th Jan 2014. The enclosure was built outside the remit of the original plan.
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■ para 5.61 – I have no record of a retrospective request for change to condition 5 – 7am to 7pm but not Sundays or Bank holidays. Is there some private
agreement between the Council and UK Docks?
* I think you will find, that while I have often mentioned noise in my correspondence with the council I have not complained specifically about it before. The ‘allegations of noise nuisance’ seems to be a totally unjustified statement.
As far as I know, Corporate Lead used the term allegations in ‘matters
and allegations’ in what I thought to be a rather less than straightforward reply to the MP for Berwick.
NB – Attachment 6, and as Alison was unwilling to let me have a copy of either the main letter or the other attachments it is reasonable to assume that the allegations theme was developed further.
The Fifth Condition specifically applies to the use of the shed on a Sunday. There is no restriction to the use of offices etc. outside standard hours and that still stands. UK Docks never put in a request for it to be reconsidered retrospectively. The issue was referred to the Interim Head of Legal Services because it is obvious and the article of July 2020 was deliberately selected because of the use of the term vexatious. It was first used to describe the activities of a former constituent of the South Shields’ MP by her former husband and his ‘friend’ Mr Palmer in February that year.