It looks like UK Docks were made aware that while the may have got a wider shed they were unlikely to get a taller one and certainly not a longer one so a scheme was hatched whereby they would provide some plans to support a false claim that they had approval for the taller shed and bet on the Council being able to fool the protestors of which I was one. The Council were not able to fool the protestors as I have shown in the second to last item on the list provided below, No 8.
You will see from the ‘Misrepresentation of Plans’ that I had taken over from Melanie as the representative of the protestors and have had to suffer three attacks on my integrity, 2 by the Corporate Lead, one in 2015 and the second in 2016 and now you in 2021. If you were even remotely aware of the contents of those last two items I think it unlikely that you could have been persuaded to deliver your attack on me on April the 29th. Even your Corporate Lead gave me a chance to respond whereas you have not.
The plans for the second phase were submitted from 20-May-14, onwards and the application ST/0461/14/FUL submitted on 20-Jun-14 by the Agent, Gary Craig on behalf of Jonathan Wilson; Director of UK Docks, when applied for permission to extend their shed three days after it was signed off as being fit for use in June 2014:
Date: 4 September 2014 12:10:43 BST To: Melanie Todd, Cc: Customer Advocates, Head of Development Services Hello – The Head of Development Services is out of the office at the moment and I have been asked to respond to your email – my colleague from the Building Control Team has confirmed that they sent the completion certificate out on June 17th. The final Building Control inspection was on 13th June.
Regards, Principal Planning Officer
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Misdirection by Alison Hoy on behalf of Customer Advocacy, No 1.
There was much wrong with the application and it was finalised in January or February 2015 and naturally I complained that it was unreasonable to seek to get permission to extend the shed when it was nearly 3m taller than what had been approved but the Planning Manager, Mr Gordon Atkinson was having none of it and when I omitted the FBR number, 266782, on my last repost he seized his chance and used Customer Advocacy to put it into a special bin where it remains to this day.
I would like to point out that my complaint that the shed was oversize and the Council had done nothing about it was with the Ombudsman:
Subject: RE: Application ST/0461/14/FUL – 2nd Slipway Cover and Offices [PROTECT]
From: “Customer Advocates”Date: Thu, March 12, 2015 1:19 pm
To: mick.dawson at theharbourview.co.uk
Dear Mr Dawson Your email to Mr Atkinson has been forwarded to our team as your complaint on this matter has exhausted the Council’s complaints procedure and is now with the Local Government Ombudsman’s office . . .
The first thing to notice is that Alison has marked her response as [PROTECT] and that should make one wary and the other is that there is no longer any link to 266782, it might have been my mistake to drop the reference number from the title but Mr Atkinson had clearly taken the opportunity to use Alison to pedal two more lies about the drawings to add to the ones he has already made.
1. That the meeting of 8-July was about 8296/1A – it was not, it was about 8296/14;
2. 8296/14 was drawn after the frames went up in September 2013 – it was not, it is dated Aug 13.
• that 8296/1A was approved – it is not;
• that the gable end on 8296/14 referred to the road end – it refers to the river end;
• the gable end was was not drawn to scale – it is drawn to scale (1:100 in fact).
The complaint that it was unreasonable to accept a planning application to extend a building that had been built without planning permission and is taller than planned, had vanished in to thin air and this enabled the Executive to conflate it with the complaint that the shed was taller than planned.
Misdirection by Alison Hoy on behalf of Customer Advocacy, No 2.
My letter of the 4th of December 2015 w as about the height of that shed, and the letter of the 7th went on to give Mr Simmonette some back ground. The neither they nor letter of the 30th September said anything about enforcement and I even told Mr Simmonette that we had seen 8296/2 in my letter of the 4th December:
It has recently come to my attention that 8296/2, one of two drawings in the Council’s possession that have been authorised, gives a clearer indication of the shed end heights.
He very obviously wanted to keep the existence of that drawing hidden and rather than admit that the shed was taller than planned, he used Alison to change the subject.
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Dear Mr Dawson
I have been forwarded your emails to the Planning Team dated 4th and 7th December 2015, in order to clarify the Council’s position regarding your comments on issues relating to the existing boat repair shed at UK Docks Tyne Slipway and your earlier complaint to the Council regarding this matter.
Your email of 4th December refers to not being satisfied with the responses to the second part of your earlier contact to the team on 30 September. This was regarding the planning enforcement aspect of the existing boat repair shed. This matter has been investigated fully by the Council through its corporate complaints procedure. The complaint was not upheld and was also considered and decided by the Local Government Ombudsman who found no fault with the Council’s decision..
All of the letters or emails were sent to reinforce the fact that the shed is 3m taller than planned and Mr Simmonette like Messrs Cunningham, Atkinson and Mansbridge did not want to admit it. Nor did Customer Advocacy, they failed to mention the height in the faux Stage 3 response that they passed to the Ombudsman. Mr Mansbridge had set it up for her by overwriting Job 248789 with 253539.
Alison’s email of 9th December 2015 was the one that I took to the solicitors in Sunderland because it was the first time we had evidence of why the Council were giving misinformation and or misrepresentation to the Ombudsman. She continued:
The Local Government Ombudsman’s final decision dated 15 April 2015 was that:
This complaint is not upheld. In 2013 a developer resumed building a boat shed for which he had planning permission and had started building in 2001. Local residents complained but the Council found the developer could still build the shed. However, the developer built it almost a metre wider than he should have done. There is no evidence of fault in the way the Council dealt with the breach of planning control and its decision not to take enforcement action. It kept residents informed throughout the process. The complainant says the shed is also 3 metres higher than it should be. The Council says it is not. There is no fault in how the Council decided the shed is the permitted height.
It kept the residents misinformed throughout the process when the shed is 3 meters higher than it should be. The Council did take enforcement action in September 2013 but dropped it after a meeting with the Tyne Gateway Assn in November:
It looks like someone in the Council was aware of this fraud and someone with the authority to order UK to stop work on their shed. Most likely they had seen the approved drawing from 1996 that showed the true planned height of the shed.
Reference: foot of page 7 , my letter to you on the 26th June 2021.
Misdirection by Alison Hoy on behalf of Customer Advocacy, No 3.
In her email of the 9th she went on to say:
We have also responded to a further enquiry made to the Council via your then local MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan, dated 1 June 2015, which claimed you had not been able to locate
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any details from the Council on why the shed had been approved despite the breach in planning conditions, even though at that time you had received complaint responses from both the Council and the Ombudsman.
Which was true because the shed was not approved but the planners under the direction of the Head of Development Services had to pretend it had been approved so that Mr J Wilson, Director of UK Docks, could not only get a taller shed but a longer one as well. See misdirection No. 2
My I remind you that he was responsible for passing the doctored version of 8296/2 and the incorrectly dimensioned 8296/1A to Mr Cunningham in the first place. In saying that, I have assumed that the vital dimensions and the drawing’s details were not removed by the Council’s planning officers.
Alison went on to say: “You also submitted a further complaint to the Council on the same matter on 13 July 2015. I have attached my responses to your contact which confirmed the Council were not to consider the matter further”
I was in two minds as whether to give this, the title of Misdirection No 4 but decided against it. She was the author of the email of the 13th July and it concerned a request for information which she completed to my satisfaction. It resulted in two screen prints, for 248789 and 253539 and were proof that the Council were manipulating their own complaints procedure to the advantage of the likes of Mr J Wilson and the disadvantage of people like Melanie and myself.
Misdirection by Alison Hoy on behalf of Customer Advocacy, No 4.
When I received the threat of being sectioned by your Corporate Lead on August 1st 2016, I naturally responded because she stated: There is no evidence to suggest that there has been deliberate misinformation provided by Council officers to the Local Government Ombudsman. when the findings were riddled with them.
I wrote a well reasoned response and copied it to Customer Advocacy, but they did not want to know and it appeared to have been passed back to the Corporate Lead:
Dear Mr Dawson
Thank you for your email and the copy of the letter sent to Mrs Johnson. Mrs Johnson received your letter on her return to work 12 September and acknowledges its receipt.
For your information Michaela Green (nee Hamilton) is currently on secondment and therefore your mail will be considered along with the letter to Mrs Johnson.
It was a harsh but fair criticism of Mrs Johnson’s handling of my complaint that the Council had been deliberately misleading the Ombudsman, and as I had anticipated, she just flicked it into the virtual waste bin. She had not registered the complaint so the most reliable audit trail is held in my records.
This meant she could recycle her opinion that I was a persistent and unreasonable complainant and as I have shown she had already accused the good Citizens of South Shields of making allegations because she did not want to admit that we were right about the height to the MP for Berwick.
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Notice that it was attachment 6 and Alison is not willing to reveal what your Corporate Lead said in her letter which it was attached which suggests their was much more misinformation given to Anne-Marie Trevelyan that the Council care to admit.