Shooting the Messenger

02/05/20 E Lewell-Buck Two months ago I gave my home phone number in Amble to your husband in good faith to give to a Keith Palmer whom I assumed was your new Office Manager. When I returned his call he made it very clear that he was determined to suppress the truth about UK Dock’s shelter on River Drive. He said that any future emails from me to your office would be ignored, just filed away.
Complex issue – suspect ELB does not know of the existance of K Palmer
18/05/20 K Palmer I was not born yesterday and I could see exactly what you are trying to do and it appears that your view is at odds with Emma’s and mine. If you are the new office manager for the MP for South Shields it is not a very good start is it? If you are not, why did you solicit my home phone number from someone I thought I could trust?
No Answer
25/06/20 A Hamilton CC: Emma Lewell-Buck MP Subject: Fallout from Phone Call, 13-Jan-20
Not Copied to CA; Did Emma ask about it?
16/07/20 D Francis Please see the email below and note that I have had no reply from Mr Buck to the question, who is Mr Palmer, and I wondered if you had come across a Keith Palmer <palmerk@parliament.uk> in your dealings with either the Council or the MP’s office. Like Mr Palmer, Mr Buck has gone to ground and he was so quick to respond on two previous occasions. I guess that it is because it conflicts with Mr Palmer’s wishes.
Not Copied to CA; Did Emma or the Cllrs ask about it?
20/07/20 David Francis Hi David, Thanks for getting back so quickly. Over the w/end I tackled Mr Palmer directly but do not expect him to answer. I looked back through my notes to the time that Emma and Angela were told by UK docks that they had been given permission retrospectively for their shed and it looks like it was pressure from all of us, you and I included, that forced them into that position because they could not provide any proof that their shed had approval before 2013. They could not because there is none. After Nicola Robason confirmed it was not true that they had permission for the shed, the next thing to do was to ask the same questions of the Chief Executive and the Council guessed that was most likely to be my next step which was why Mr Palmer was sent in to do a hatchet job on me. Not for the first time, he appointed Mrs Hayley Johnson to do the same thing 3 years ago and you may have noticed her name cropping up in my circulation lists. Time to introduce her to the company.
Not Copied to CA; Did David ask about it?
22/07/21 N Robason I should have made clear that I do not agree with the opinion expressed in your last email to me, 26-Feb- 20 and I should have replied long before now. In it you refer to my emails of the 31st January and the 24th February and it is the fallout from the second that I will deal with.
Nil Response
23/10/20 Lewell-Buck On January 8th I received an email from Simon Buck: Good morning Mr Dawson, I wonder if it is possible to have your telephone number, I will then pass this on to my colleague Keith Palmer who will call you later today. Kind regards. Simon Buck Office Manager for the Office of Emma Lewell-Buck MP.
Sent to ELB copied to Cllr Hamilton
30/11/20 Emma Lewell-Buck MP
Anne-marie Trevelyan MP
Cllr Angela Hamilton
Cllr David Francis
Peter Cunningham
George Mansbridge
Hayley Johnson
Alison Hoy
John Rumney
Dear All, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I believe that South Shields Council have been corrupting their complaints procedure and in turn that of the Local Government Ombudsman (Ombudsman) to hide the lack of building control amongst other things. It points to the reticence of their Chief Enforcement Officer to take any action against preferred developers who build what they want rather than what had been allowed. I’ve also made no secret of the fact that it is not exclusive to South Tynside Council and you have to look no further than the Grenfell Inquiry to see what I mean and I also think that the easiest way to put a stop to Council manipulating the system for the benefit of of their favoured clients is for Parliament to make it an offence to lie to the Ombudsman. Whether it be a Civil offence or Criminal one; would be for Parliament to decide.
Nil Response
07/12/20 Rumney One thing that was so obvious to me was overlooked when I passed my criticism to Customer Advocacy and that there was only ONE complaint about the Council giving misinformation to the Ombudsman. Using Section F – Persistent and Unreasonable Behaviour, against me was not only defied logic it was unreasonable in itself. Don’t forget she accused the good folk of South Shields of making allegations when it was she (that) was making allegations about us in her attachment to the MP for Berwick.
At the end of the day, if all the evidence i.e. approved drawings, say that a structure is nearly 3 meters taller than planned then no amount of mudslinging can make it approved or permitted.
Nil Response – Delivery to the following recipients failed permanently: john.rumney@southtynside.gov.uk
18/12/20 N Robason I had become Resident’s spokesperson after the Town Hall meeting in November 2014 as I was the only person attending who spoke out against the proposition made by the Principal Planning Officer that the enclosure (shed) had been approved. To put it another way I saw straight through Cllr Anglin’s view of the meeting: Michael, I took no minutes as is customary at these informal meetings. For your record I am sure all would agree: The Exec representatives of the Group accepted that the construction had been made legally as per drawings seen.
Not only had he downgraded a meeting that was to decide the future of the shed, he linked me to two people who had an interest in its survival. First of all, I was not an ‘Exec representative’ of the Tyne Gateway Assn (TGA) although I had been on its committee for a good number of years, and secondly, I was aware that to say that that structure had been made legally to mean it had been approved was probably a fraudulent misrepresentation and your interim Head of Legal Services should be able to confirm that for you.
Nil Response  
23/12/20 Robason My email started to grow like Topsy when I started to look back at the number of times that my questions/complaints about the height of the shed were referred to Customer Advocacy and especially how many times the responses were accompanied by misrepresentations of various kinds.
I’d also started to reproduce quotes and photographs from the various items of correspondence to reduce the number of cross references so I’ve converted ‘Conflation of Complaints’ into a pdf document. Please see the attached file.
24/12/20 Leah for RobasonThank you for your email regarding complaints you have raised with the Council. I am writing to acknowledge receipt and confirm that this matter will be looked into and you will receive a response week commencing 4th January.
24/12/20 Lewell-Buck Dear Leah, Thank you for responding on Nicola’s behalf. Copied to Rumney – not Lewell-Buck

Eo2020