Misdirection by Alison Hoy on behalf of Customer Advocacy, No 5
On Sunday 18th December 2016 the residents living were roused by noise emanating from UK Docks’ shed and I went to check that they were not slipping or launching a vessel but they were not and had thus breached the fifth condition. This is covered in great depth in Shed and Corruption – Part 3; too much possibly so I here I will just extract the essence of the misdirection.
The 5th Condition of the grant for the shed: 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.
I wrote, 20-Dec-16: 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
The Planning Officer, Mr Simmonette, who was in charge of the second phase of the shed’s development did not respond but Alison did and she opened, 21-Dec-16 with:
Dear Mr Dawson Further to the recent email from you regarding noise at the site of UK Docks.
She then gave me half a page of instructions on how to make a complaint about noise and went on to say:
With regards to the control of general working hours at the site, in respect of planning no restrictions exist. This matter was considered and responded to by the Local Government Ombudsman in response to the earlier complaint they investigated on your behalf.
One: There may be no restrictions on them using the site on a Sunday but there are on the use of the shed – see the fifth condition.
Two: The earlier complaint was about a breach of the Second Condition, not the Fifth!
On January the 17th 2017 I received a letter reinforcing Alison’s attempt to conflate the two separate complaints made three years apart. The author, Hayley Johnson, also attempted to hide the fact that the shed was being put to use on a Sunday.
I then asked Cllr Anglin to intercede but he just did not want to know: Dear Mr Dawson, As you are are dealing with the Council directly and processing an official complaint, I obviously cannot be part of any actions whilst claims and allegations are being investigated.
In the end I resolved the situation by calling at the Town Hall in February 2017:
From: Alison.Hoy@southtyneside.gov.uk> on behalf of Customer Advocates
Sent: 14 February 2017 15:07
Subject: Request for screen information
Dear Mr Dawson
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The reference number 272189 does not refer to a feedback logged on your behalf but to a 3rd party. This cannot therefore be sent to you.
Officers at the Town Hall were correct in advising you that they could not help you further with complaints regarding Sunday working at UK Docks, as this had been dealt with as part of the historic complaint you made to the Council and to which current contact restrictions apply.
Alison has been asked to conflate the original complaint of January 2014, that the shed was oversize, with the one about Sunday working December 2016. so that the Council can ignore it. The contact restrictions were put in place so that the Chief Executive did not have to explain why his staff were giving misinformation to the Ombudsman.
The officers at the Town Hall Front Desk confirmed that Mr Simmonette was the planning officer responsible and he had not raised one for the breach of the Fifth Condition by UK docks. He could not deny that they using the shed without launching or taking a vessel onto the slipway as I had sent in a photograph taken by a neighbour early on the Sunday morning so he did not register my complaint which is the main method by which the Council’s Complaint Procedure is compromised and gave Alison the two misdirections listed and that is way by which the Procedure is corrupted.
It appears that Cllr Anglin was as fully aware of what was happening as it was he who organised the meeting at the Town Hall in November 2013 where our claim that the shed was taller and wider than planned were dismissed -see page 2 of Shed and Corruption – Part1.
Misdirection by Alison Hoy on behalf of Customer Advocacy, No 6.
I had anticipated that the Council would mislead the Ombudsman and wrote to the MP for South Shields at the and of March 2015:
Eighteen months ago my former neighbour, Miss Melanie Todd wrote to you in September about our concerns regarding a development described as ‘Approved boat repair shelter at Tyne Slipway, River Drive, South Shields’ and asking to meet with you. I understand at the meeting, the Residents expressed concerns that, firstly, it was being built on River Drive, and secondly, that the framework had not been built to plan.
I did however get a case number, ZA4803, before the issue was passed to the MP for Berwick – Please see misdirection No. 3.
I had returned to live in Greens Place for a number of reasons which need not concern you but in March 2017, I went to attend the Constituency Labour Party meeting in Hedworth Hall where I met with the MP, Emma Lewell-Buck and discovered that we were both being stonewalled by the Council and she suggested that I contacted her Office Manager which I did, and I mention this because it puts a date on where Alison’s and my timeline merge with that of the MP for South Shield – March 2017.
By then your Corporate Lead had got the Executive out of a fix first by accusing the good Citizens of making allegations in her letter to the MP for Berwick, and misdirection No. 3, and then me of being a persistent an unreasonable complainant – see Shed and Corruption Part 4.
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As you can see from misdirections 2 and 3 Mr Simmonette and Mrs Johnson were lying to Alison to cover up their own misconduct and naturally I was not going to let it rest there, and especially as Messrs Simmonette’s and Burrell’s handling of the use of the shed on a Sunday involved a certain amount of deceit, I thought it about time to complain to the Chief Executive about his staff’s misconduct. Besides the libel by Mrs Johnson there was Mr Simmonette’s conflation of the complaints the breach of the fifth condition with that of second.
The letter to the Chief Executive was handed across the counter i n the Town Hall on 26th May 17, the walk from Greens place to the Town Hall via North Marine Park being really rather pleasant. Apparently it took nearly two weeks to get from the front desk to get to Jarrow but at least it was acknowledged.
It has never been answered because the Chief Executive did not want to answer it and his Corporate Lead had given him the perfect excuse to sit back and do nothing, by falsely accu sing me of being and unreasonable and persistent complainant in 2016 because I had:
• submitted repeated complaints, essentially regarding the same issue, after our complaints process had been exhausted;
• attempted to have the complaint reconsidered in ways that are incompatible with our adopted complaints procedure, or with good practice;
• refused to accept the decision of the Council or Local Government Ombudsman, by arguing points of detail.
That his Staff were not following the instructions given in How we will deal with your Complaint was obvious so a strategy was devised to take out the complainant i.e. me but please note that none of the points she made stand up to any scrutiny:
- repeated complaints: there have been three and only the first was taken to the Ombudsman where a senior planning officer had lied to the Ombudsman when he said the shed had been approved; the second was about Sundays and the planning officer responsible just ignored it, see misdirection No. 5 and the third, delivered by hand on the 26-May-17 is still awaiting the Chief Executive’s attention;
- the second claim, incompatible etc. is pure hypocrisy and not good practice;
- I said the shed was nearly 3m taller than an approved drawing allowed whereas the senior planning officer had given misinformation to the Ombudsman.