When Garlands applied to South Tyneside Council for permission to build their Call Center they anticipated a workforce of about 800 and permission was granted for two office buildings and a large overspill car park:-

Garlands is delighted to announce a major business expansion, with the creation of a new contact centre in South Shields, South Tyneside in North East England. The centre will comprise two new office buildings totalling 47000 sq. ft. within a two acre site.
Construction of the new eight hundred seat centre will be carried out by Mandale Commercial Ltd. and work will start immediately. The centre is expected to open in February 2008. Over a thousand people could eventually work at the site.

Garlands went into administration in May 2010 and the Centre was shut down before they even put the second office in to use. The site appeared to have been cursed because UtilityWise used the main office building for a while but they too went into administration in 2014.

The Call Centre buildings occupied the middle third of the of the section of Long Row shown in the ariel view below. The English Coastal Path ran until some time in 2018 from Wapping Street where it met the river at Comical Corner on the left (north end of view), along the river edge of the car park, along the river side of the two ex-call centre, round the entrance of Market Dock and along to the side Middle Dock where it rejoined Long Row at the point it crosses Middle Dock. It then continued along the side of the river Tyne to the ferry landing for foot passengers.

The next view was from Comical Corner from about the time that the Call Center was lying empty.

The car park was barely used even when the Centre was in use and only ever had an occasional visitor for many years. Then the bricks that had been laid to make it started to disappear and that is the bare patch on the left in the first view.

The boundary at the south end of the former call centre was clearly marked by what used to be the north edge of what used to be the small dry dock which was made into a communal space, with seating, by the Council.

The line of the English Coastal Footpath was indicated by the railings provided for the benefit of those who wished to walk beside the river and they ran from near Comical Corner to what used to be Middle Dock.

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Loss Of Amenity

The site plan is taken from ST/0088/17/PNCU and to quote:- “Application for prior approval for the proposed change of use of existing offices (Use Class B1a) into 43 two-bedroomed residential apartments/duplexes (Use Class C3) under Schedule 2, Part 3, Class O of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015.
The Applicant was Keywest Three Ltd.
The Agent was Mario Minchella Ltd.
The Planning Officer was Garry Simmonette 0191 4247426

Notice the site plan prepared in 2015, the red line, includes a lot more than the two existing blocks that were UtilityWise. It also includes the car park to the north or left on the drawing below, Market Dock to the South (right hand side) and the English Coastal Path from Comical Corner at the north end, to where it turns back toward the river after crossing what is left of Market Dock. The southern boundary of the old UtilityWise site is shown as including the Dock.

UtilityWise February 2017, (Gazette), showing neatly paved area at its northern end and includes what was to become the English Coastal Path running along side the river (bottom right).

The same location from a different perspective, four years later. The English Coastal Path is blocked by a well fitted permanent fence and its paving has been removed but the railings are still there.

There is still access from the public highway as one can see from the car parked neatly out of the way. The outline of the location plan is shown in red and the indent on the eastern side of it shows were the bit of the road with double yellow lines fit into the whole picture and poses the question – who owns the car park.

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At the other end of the former Call Centre the Council had originally provided a pleasant seating for the use of the local residents and those using the English Coastal Path. See foot of page 1.

As one can see from the later picture of Market Dock, the seating and the street lights are still there. The whole of the filled in part of dry dock appear to have been given away by the Council to Key West Ltd and at the same time the owner of the nearest flat has been able to fit a boat lift for his exclusive use into the bit of the dock that is still open to the Tyne.

Not only that the path that went on to run in front of Nos 14 to 21 Long Row have also been given to the current owner(s) of the former UtilityWise site and there is now a 2m fence put there to exclude the public from the former seating area.

The loss of amenity was completed when the Council allowed the former public footpath which was part of the English Coastal Path to be gated. It is no longer in the public domain. In the plans drawn by the agent for Keywest Three Ltd, the path formally the most southern bit of it, shown within the extended area indicated by the blue lined area from ST/0088/17/PNCU.

Plans for the Car Park

It appears that agents for Keywest No. Three Ltd, had laid claim to the car park. Please see the plan made by Mario Minchella Architects in October 2020. The railings that used to run along side the English Coastal Path are attached to the top of the retaining wall which runs along the river side of the car park.

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The barrier round the Long Row/Wapping St side of the car park, see the view from Comical Corner on page 1, is clearly shown and one had to step round the end of it to get to the footpath which is not clearly shown on the plan. As you can see the grass edge and the footpath have been merged by the architect into one into one although he has taken care to to show the retaining wall.

By the time the plans were submitted to the Committee on August the 31st 2021 the agent had redrawn the plans to show that the public footpath that used to be at the river’s edge could be completely blocked off.

Plans to close off access to it were submitted by the Agent/Mario Minchella Architects 30th June 2021 and the north end closure is shown here where the external wall is extended to meet the new building.

Keywest No. Three plan to close off access by the public by the planned extension of the existing wall to meet the corner of the proposed block of flats.

At the other end, Keywest No. Three plan to close of access to the former footpath which will become a ‘residential amenity area’ by the use of a SECURITY GATE FOR MAINTENANCE ACCESS ONLY. The former English Coastal Path that used to run along side the river for the benefit of all had been shut off at the request of new owner of the car park.

These plans were put forward by Helen Lynch and approved by Peter Mennell in August 2021 and they appear to be treading along a path devised by the Principal Planning Officer, Peter Cunningham in 2013, see Readheads Landing, below. They were refined by Planning Officer, Gary Simmonette and the Head of Development Services from 2017.

Readheads Landing

The Principal Planning Officer in charge of closing access to the river Tyne from Readheads Landing did it in 2013 and appears to have got away with it, because access to waterways is very ancient and appears to be controlled by Parliament and not by the Local Council. However public river landings are not liked by Port of Tyne or South Tyneside Council because while having to maintain them etc. they do not profit from them.

Meanwhile there was still a need to maintain the navigation into Tyne Dock because of Tyne Slipway and Engineering Co. Ltd, which employed a number of skilled craftsman and that included those who maintain the Port of Tyne’s pilot boats and the Shields Ferries. The Port of Tyne wished to close Tyne Dock completely for the expansion of their woodchip import business so they needed to find a new home for the maintenance of their pilot boats.

The Port of Tyne wished to close Tyne Dock completely for the expansion of their woodchip import business so they needed to find a new home for the maintenance of their pilot boats.

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By 2013 there was only two slipways left in use on the Tyne and they were the one in Tyne Dock and the one off River Drive in South Shields. At some point the owners of the River Drive site had applied for permission to build a cover or enclosure over the slipway and it was granted by the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation in 1996. It would not have been economically viable and although the foundations were laid in 2001 the shed was not built because the footings were for a bigger shed than the one for which they had permission.

It transpired that a taller shed and longer shed was required to accommodate the ferry and a solution to this problem was provided by South Tyneside Council who simply turned a blind eye to the fact that Tyne Slipway & Engineering Co Ltd built a far larger boat shed than was permitted so that the business could be moved from Commercial Road to River Drive. While the shed for which they had permission would have held a Port of Tyne pilot boat it would not have held the Shields Ferry.

By the time the local residents raised complaints about it being bigger than planned the boat repair company had re-badged itself as UK Docks and to hide the fact that the shed was nearly 3m taller than it should have been, they gave the Council some dodgy plans to support their fraudulent misrepresentation about the shed’s height – see pages 1 and 2 of Shed and Corruption Part 1.
The footpath between Commercial Road and the former Landing no longer served its original purpose and ended up as part of the Port of Tyne estate. One could say that South Tyneside Council had given it to the Port of Tyne or more accurately, a Principal Planning Officer had given it to them.
Conclusion
Ancient and not so ancient parcels of land are given to property developers in this way. They do not own these but as soon as the Council approve the adjacent development the ownership of the lane, footpath or Right of Way, appears to pass to the developer.
Protest appears to be a waste of time because the Planning Officers and Enforcement Officers appear to be acting on behalf of the developers and not for the local residents and after many years, the device of giving public footpaths away has been refined to such an extent that they can bypass a Planning Committee completely and convince the Land Registry that the ownership/responsibility of that section of the English Coastal Path, either side of Market Dock, had passed from the Council to Key West No Three Limited.

In 2013 the Quayside public footpath was set up to connect the Harbour Village with the existing footpath across the Braid and it was to follow the quay-edge along Coble Quay and through the premises of the Amble Boat Company Ltd.

For mutual security and safety the working areas of the Amble Boat Company were to be separated from it by a 1.8m high welded mesh paladin fence.

A recent picture which includes a bunk house planned in 2017, built over the slipway lower left and also shows the section of the footpath that now runs between the three blocks of flats and the marina built by the then owner of the Amble Boat Company in the intervening four years.

The footpath had also been diverted by the Amble Marina boat park which had been extended a bit over half way towards Coquet Street and a temporary car park made it necessary for the diversion of the footpath to continue along to Coquet St, the line of which is indicated by the rear of the housing, shown on the top right of the picture.

Amble Boat Yard

It currently runs along the boundary of the land claimed by Amble Marina as shown in the detail from from the full location plan from 1301349.

The full location plan includes the path that ran along the south west side of 28 Coquet Street and shows the slipway for a sailing club if one examines the detail more closely one will see that what was to become part of the English Coastal Path was marked as the path that gave access to Shore Base).

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It also shows the slipway that was used by both the sailing club and Shore Base and was included in the location plan for the marina. Amble Marina were given neither the path labelled:- Entrance to coquet shorebase. (existing) which points directly to the slipway, nor the car park adjacent to the garage in the detail given at the foot of page 1.

The planning department of Northumberland County Council (NCC) were clearly wise to the attempted land grab by the owner of Amble Marina since the car park was excluded from their plans and it remains so to this day.

The car park was still free in August 2022 but by that time access to the side of the marina and onto river Coquet had appeared to have been denied? The slipway shown as part of the sailing club became useless for many years as the only access to it was from the public footpath that ran from Coquet Street to the corner of the marina.

Plans to close the slipway were made in 2017 when the Council Gave permission for Radcliffes Lodge to be built. The barrier was placed across Coastal Path in August 2021with a note that read:- Apologies for any inconvenience, footpath closed until until further notice, due to unsafe hand railings.

The Bunk House (Radcliffes Lodge)

Application – 17/02896/FUL, 14-Jul-17
Applicant Details – Tony Pull, Coble Developments Ltd
Agent – Jon Tweddle, Radcliffes Lodge, NE65 0FB
Site Plan: Mario Minchella Architects

What was to become part of the English Coastal Path is clearly shown running along the top of the marina quay in front of the 3 blocks of flats, (where it is shown as a promenade).

In front of the proposed bunk house and the boundary between the bunk house and the boat park for Amble Marina is says it says the existing public footpath is to be retained.

Within a month, a retrospective application for the erection of aluminium individual fixed letters and logo was received, and the owners appear to have persuaded the agent to include the footpath which had been part of the Amble Marina Development as part of Radcliffes Lodge property.

Application – 21/03580/ADE, 08-Sep-21
Applicant:- Coble Developments Limited, Radcliffes Lodge, NE65 0FB Directors – Antony Pull and Nicolas Spurr
Agent:  – Mario Minchella Architects Unit 4, Witney Way, NE35 9PE

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The footpath, previously shown as a promenade, was clearly not included in the development that included the four blocks of flats but the footpath serving the former slipway was, by September 2021, shown as belonging to owner of Radcliffes Lodge.

Between the Amble Boat Yard, and the Bunkhouse there are the four block of flats and Radcliffe’s Bar and the applications for these were made in two separate applications. One in 2013 for three blocks of flats and an eatery which was to become Ratcliffes Bar and one two years later for the much larger block of flats set facing in more northerly direction than the first three blocks. Please refer to plan at the foot of page 2.

It is clear from the plans submitted in 2013 for the three blocks that both the slipway into, and the foot path along side, the marina still exited. The latter having been renamed by the agent as a promanade.

The first application  13/03731/FUL, 05-Dec-13 Applicant Details – Tony Pull,
Coble Developments Ltd Radcliffes Lodge, NE65 0FB
Directors – Antony Pull and Nicolas Spurr
Agent  – Mario Minchella Architects Unit 4, Witney Way, NE35 9PE

The three blocks of flats duly appeared with the footpath between the new flats and mean high water sill extant but the one between them and the Sailing Club had gone and it looks like the development had been built over the footpath but it had not. It is still there, see The English Coastal Path – Amble, August 2022 on the page below.

The second Application
15/03472/FUL, 10-Oct-15 was for 1 block of flats, Site Address: 14 Coquet St, Amble
Applicant – Tony Pull, Coble Developments Ltd Radcliffes Lodge, NE65 0FB
Directors – Antony Pull and Nicolas Spurr Agent – Mario Minchella Architects Unit 4, Witney Way, NE35 9PE

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The boundary between it and the earlier block of flats is clearly shown as is the path the running beside Mean High Water and n.b. the walls of the quay are vertical and topped with railings. The photograph is of the barrier placed where quay alters direction by about 10° and was taken from in front of the fourth block, the location of which more easily located from the plan at the foot of page 2.

The drawing A-00 (Project 3314), prepared for Mr Tweddle by his architect in February 2020, shows a 3m wide part of the footpath to be retained as part of the development and it comes to an abrupt stop.

Application – 21/03144/FUL, 03-Aug-21 Applicant Details – Sidney Scott, Coble Marina Limited
Directors – Sidney Scot and Derek Kewley Amble Boat Yard, Coquet Street, NE65 0DJ
Agent – Jon Tweddle, Jon Tweddell Planning Ltd, Coble Quay, NE65 0FB
Architect – Mario Minchella Architects

The English Coastal Path – Amble, August 2022

In the last few years access to the Quayside public footpath, planned to run alongside the marina and onto the Braid has become blocked. During that time, it became part of the English Coastal Path, and in the same eight years permission to build the luxury flats was granted by the NCC and the proposed bunk-house had become Radcliffes Lodge, a boutique hostel.

I had written to the NCC in Sept 2021 about the closure of footpath between Radcliffes Lodge and the Amble Marina boat park but the response showed that they had clearly sided with the property developers against those that used to appreciate the freedom to use the English Coastal Path:-

“It is not considered that blocking a Public Right of Way
amounts to a breach of planning. Accordingly, we have no control over this matter and I intend to close my file in relation to your enquiry.

Meanwhile a spokesperson had told the Ambler: “NCC understands the concerns raised locally about the closure of this popular walkway. The walkway is not a public Right of Way and has been closed by the landowner, Amble Marina due to safety concerns.” I had of course been confusing ‘a right of access’ with ‘a Public Right of Way’ and I should have been corrected by the NCC Officer who responded negatively to my request that the barriers be removed.

He also would have known that English Coastal Path was not a right of way and was well out of order when he referred me on:- Should you have any queries please contact our Public Rights of Way Team.

He should have been reminding whoever was responsible for repairing the railings to get it done, rather than colluding with those who chose to deny others and I from access to the English Coastal path.

In the meantime, the Apologies for the inconvenience had been replaced by a No Unauthorised Entry sign.

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As one can see from the planning applications detailed on pages 3 and 4, it appears the planning officers of the NCC have been giving bits of the of the English Coastal Path to various developers over the years.

It would appear that neither the owner of the Marina nor those who own Radcliffes Lodge wished to be responsible for the damaged handrail and their solution is to deny access to the public and in this they were aided by an NCC enforcement officer.

The portion of the path with the broken fence is now appears to belong to the owners of Radcliffes Lodge, see retrospective permission to add the name of Radcliffes Lodge to the bunk house in September 2021.

The directors of Coble Developments Limited are Messrs Pull and Spurr and the agent is Mario Minchella Architects and they had switched the plans which said, the existing public footpath is to be retained, see 17/02896/FUL to ones that omitted the note, 21/03580/ADE. Thus the ownership of that part of the ECP was passed to the directors of Coble Developments and the part that ran between Radcliffes Lodge and Amble Marina’s boat park was given to the owner of Amble Marina.

The walkway or promenade is not technically a Right of Way but is is still part of the English Coastal Path and Amble Marina have had a year to fix the railing. Clearly the owner will never bother to fix the railings unless he told to fix it and that is not going to happen while the NCC enforcement officers are quite prepared to do nothing.

At the other end of the disappearing section of the English Coastal Path, the architect appointed by the agent for Messrs Scot and Kewley drew the Coastal Path finishing about 5m short of the nearest block of flats.

The detail is from Mario Minchella Architect’s site plan drawn in February 2020. It shows the Coastal Path finishing about 5m short of the nearest block of flats.

The note says:- 3m wide Coastal path to be retained as part of development

It would appear that when the final development to turn the last boatyard on the North East Coast into a private estate of luxury housing and lets, another one of those, No Unauthorised Entry signs will get attached to yet another barrier to the English Coastal Path.
Access to the mooring pontoon will also be denied.

MD, 27 August 2022

Amble

I discovered at a Planning Meeting in Amble that the footpath round the flats overlooking Amble Marina could not be discussed because it came under ‘Rights of Way’ and the disturbing thing about this was that a site plan which had been drawn by no other than Mario Minchella Architects did not include the part of the footpath running alongside the Marina. – see South Sheilds, below.
Continue reading Disappearing Footpaths – Amble & S Shields →

The Ambler, December 2021

Transparency needed over closure of walkway

Posted on 09th December 2021 | in Community , Northumberland County Council

Many people have commented on the closure of the walkway along the quayside and wondered when it might reopen. Loose handrails were cited as the reason for the closure, but over the weeks and months no work has been forthcoming. We wondered why.

Coble Quay walkway was paid for with public money, but who is responsible for fixing it?

Since the summer, The Ambler has been asking many people many questions, not all of whom were effusive in their answers. At one stage we wondered if we should give up. Except, no, and here’s why.

In 2014, Northumberland County Council (NCC) and partners were awarded £1.8million by the government’s Coastal Communities Fund to construct the Harbour Village. One of the key features of the development proposal, was the construction of a ‘public footpath’ or walkway along the quayside.

Northumberland County Council’s original development plan described the walkway as a ‘new quayside public footpath’

South Tyneside Council are giving part of the England Coastal Path (ECP) away to a favoured customer, by barring access and getting caught doing it. We do not know if the the worker employed to put the notice on the gate barring access to the ECP was a Council worker, see header, but clearly he had been given authority to place it.

Although the ECP is not a right of way, the legal term appears to be a permissive path, the process of giving them away began when the Principal Planning Officer in charge of closing access to the river Tyne from Readheads Landing away in 2013 what was a right of way to the owner of the land on either side. He got away with it, because Rights of Way are controlled by Parliament and not by the Local Council and by this means quite a long strip of land was simply given away to the Port of Tyne*.

Ancient and not so ancient parcels of land are given to property developers in this way. They do not own these but as soon as the Council approve any plans that wrongfully include the rights of way or public footpaths, and that includes footpaths with permissive access, ownership passes into private hands.

Protest appears to be a waste of time because the activities of the agents who requisition plans, the planning officers and enforcement officers, overlooking the switch to private ownership  and lastly their managers giving approval for the plans because the Council, can simply get away with it, by claiming that Rights of Way are not a planning issue.

This site is a convenient place to store correspondence and the header for it was borrowed from Re-Open public access to the River Tyne @ Market Dock South Shields. It shows a notice being fixed to the barrier across the English Coastal Path.

This site is a convenient place to store information gleaned from various scources and the header for it was borrowed from Re-Open public access to the River Tyne @ Market Dock South Shields. It shows a notice being fixed a permanently locked barrier.

* the Port of Tyne said they would provide a viewing station on the banks of the Tyne downstream but it never happened.