UKD Sundays

The Second Condition states: The development to which this permission relates shall be carried out in complete accordance with the approved plans and specifications.
It is the basic reason for the existence of this Website because the development or shed to which that condition applies is nearly 3m taller than planned and the Council have done nothing but lie or stifle any about its height since the first frame was put up in September 2013.
Think of a builder adding an extra floor to a four story block of flats and you will get the picture .
UK Docks got away with the breach of the 2nd condition by giving plans, to the planning officer responsible, that falsely supported their claim that they had approval for it but it contained a fundamental error. When this error was pointed out to the Council, the planning officer switched to a plan retrieved from the Council’s archive which bore the same fault which eventually led South Tyneside Council giving misinformation to the Local Government Ombudsman by a Senior Planning Officer of South Tyneside Council.

The second condition has been quoted and explained because it follows that the shed ought not to be used until it is met. There were numerous complaints while the shed was under construction, September 2013 to June 2014, about this but they were ignored or worse, i.e. contradicted.

The fifth condition states: 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.
When the Council received complaints about the breaches of the fifth condition they were dismissed as allegations even when confronted photographic evidence:

Sunday Working – 18 December 2016 at 08:33

In Detail:-
When UK Docks applied to build an enclosure (shed) covering the slipway off River Drive the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation (the Authority) laid down 2 conditions in such a manner as to restrict any expansion of the business being carried out at the time of the application (1996).

The fifth condition still applies regardless of whether the shed had been built with, or without permission, and will do so until UK Docks ask for it to reconsidered retrospectively. It so happens that it has been built without planning permission.

In a complaint, solely about the breach of the 2nd condition, the Ombudsman included a comment about the 5th: #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.

She has replaced “The Authority”, i.e. The Tyne and Wear Development Corporation, with a planning officer’s opinion and secondly she has replaced ‘take place within the shelter’ with ‘site’. It looks like plans for enabling UK Docks to use their slipway on Sundays were being prepared by the Council as early as March 2015 when the Ombudsman’s first draft was issued – #16 confirms that she had been given two fraudulent misrepresentations about the 5th condition by someone in the Council.

The Planning Officer, Gary Simmonette did not register the complaint that UK Docks were in breach of the 5th condition on Sunday, 18-Dec-16, and then misinformed Customer Advocacy (CA) about it. He put them in the unworthy position of having to accuse the complainants and I was not the only one, of making allegations.

When confronted with the evidence to show that we were not making allegations CA chose to ignore it and to hide the fact that planning had not acknowledged that UK Docks were in breach of the fifth condition CA merged it with the second.

It was the noise emanating from what was rapidly becoming a shipyard that woke everyone up, or made everyone aware the slipway was being put to use on a Sunday and no-one been given notice. As CA were claiming it was a noise issue, I added a complaint about the noise as well.

On the 7th February Mr Burrell, Technical Officer, Environmental Health & Resilience closed Noise Nuisence Complaint 272189 so there is no record of the shed being in use on a Sunday.

On the 14th of February it was disclosed by CA that it was not raised by as a result of the complaint but by another person and not as a result of the noise that alerted us to the use of the shed on Sunday, 18-Dec-16.

Alison who wrote on behalf of CA was obviously not aware of an attempt by the Council to enforce silence on the matter of UK Docks use of the shed on a Sunday. These further restrictions on your contact will come into effect immediately should you continue to email the Council with historic matters.

Corporate Lead, Mrs Haley Johnson had repeated, 17th January 2017, a threat she had made 6 months earlier and in doing that she had to conflate the 5th condition with the 2nd.
Together, with Messrs Simmonette and Burrell, she had conspired to deny that UK Docks were using the shed on a Sunday, and not for the purpose of slipping or launching a vessel.

I had anticipated that something like this would happen as, they had already misinformed the Local Government Ombudsman about the height of the shed so I involved a Councillor to act as as witness as early as 9th January.

Councillor Anglin, who  was tasked with helping expose an obvious breach of the fifth condition simply walked away, saying: I obviously cannot be part of any actions whilst claims and allegations are being investigated.

Messrs Simmonette and Burrell denied that that UK Docks were using their shed on a Sunday. They were being extremely economical with the truth and it appears that they coerced Ms Hoy and Mrs Johnson to cover up for their misdemeanours.

The ‘Seven Principles of Public Life’ have certainly been cast aside by the first two officers named but I for one, would not say the same about the women.