1. The complainant, Mr Dawson, complains the Council has wrongly allowed a developer to build and keep a boat shed despite many public objections. In particular he says:
-
It wrongly said the boat shed conformed with approved plans
-
It has not taken enforcement action against the boat shed
-
There has been a lack of information and public consultation
-
It took 15 months for the Council to admit the boat shed did not have planning permission.
Correct, but after defining the Ombudsman’s role and powers in the first few paragraphs she spends the next 39 making the Council’s Case, somehow missing the overruling of the Case Officer by the Planning Manager, the continued use of conflicting drawings by the Head of Development Services and an anonymous Senior Planning officer who directly supplied drawings produced in 1997, to the LGO, saying they were approved drawings from 1996.
The Inspector has taken the Developers/Council’s word against the claimant. She has ignored the fact that UK Docks were building the shed 2.7m too high according to approved plans, being persuaded that plans that show no evidence of having been near the Tyne and Wear Development Corporation have been approved by them.
Picture by: Jim Shead photographer and writer on the Waterways