Misdirection by Alison Hoy on behalf of Customer Advocacy, No 7.
In August 2017 UK Docks started to lift containers onto each other to make space for the joist and pillars of what was to become the sixth frame of the shed you now see. The planning officers in charge at the time withheld the fact that it was to be 3m taller than approved, from the Planning Committee 01-Feb-16 and so it was approved!
So I immediately sought out Cllr Anglin, 8th August 2017:
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The trouble with the Council is that they can say what ever they want without any evidence about the existing slipway cover (shed) and they are believed. If I and other residents say something to the contrary e.g. it is 3m too high, and provide evidence and we are not believed. There is something rotten in the borough.
It was he, after all, who had arranged the meeting four years earlier where the help of the Executive Officers of the TGA, Messrs Watson and Haig, managed to get the enforcement notice lifted to allow completion of UK Docks shed. Please see Shed and Corruption – Part 1.
In 2017 he had walked away from issue of the use of the shed by UK Docks on a Sunday – See Shed and Corruption – Part 3.
With this in mind I thought it well to attach a document explaining the then current situation regarding the fifth section to Cllr Anglin and Alison would have received a copy as well. If she had read it carefully she would have discovered that the shed is indeed nearly 3m taller than planned:
8296/2 is the only approved drawing from 1996 and would have shown immediately that UK Docks had been misleading the Council when it was recovered from archive in September 2013 and probably explains why the Council clammed up on the height issue. It gives the heights and shows a road end height of 12.7m (river 15.4m). I have attached a detail from this drawing which shows this and please note that 95.5m level is not of the top set of footings (96.1m) so 0.6m needs taking from 13.3m.
The UK Docks copy has been cropped so that the vital heights of the cover 118.8m and 95.5m are missing as is the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation authorisation stamp. In most people’s book using this drawing to claim an approved height of 15.5m at the road end would be considered a fraud.
When Mr Cunningham substituted 8296/1A for 8296/1B at the meeting arranged by Cllr Anglin, all he did was continue with the fraud and all Alison did with her response to me, 11-Aug-17 was to perpetuate it:
Dear Mr Dawson
Your email to Cllr Anglin has been forwarded to our team in line with your current contact restrictions regarding issues raised regarding the UK Docks boat shed.
I must advise you that this letter is raising your historic complaint again which has been thoroughly investigated by the Council and the Local Government Ombudsman, therefore will be placed on file.
My email was not forwarded to Alison, it was copied, and she had by her actions allowed Customer Advocacy to shove my email into the special bin alongside the one sent to the Planning Manager on 12-Mar-15, repeating her action of two and a half years earlier – see Misdirection No. 1 on page 2.
Not only did the shed’s promoters hide the facts but the Council’s Corporate Lead had set up a system whereby the opponents views were always hidden:
We will not acknowledge or respond to any issues that have already been the subject of investigation by the Council, or by the Local Government Ombudsman. Any such correspondence from you will be read and placed on file, but we will not acknowledge or respond to it.
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She went on to say that if I had concerns that she had provided incorrect information in this letter and I wished to request a review of her decision, I should contact Mike Harding, Head of Legal Services, by writing to him, knowing full well that he was never going respond as he either had to repeat the fraud that the shed had been approved or admit that we had been right about the shed since September 2013.
I was not happy with Alison’s interference and I wrote to the MP’s office asking on 6-Sep-17:- What did UK docks have to say for themselves when Emma went to see them?
I received a reply which indicated that the Council and UK Docks were being economical with the truth with her and while no laws may have been broken their shed was still in breach of the second condition as everyone should know by now. Interestingly it was the first that I had heard of the Post of a Monitoring Officer but that is another story and will lead to Part 9.