After two months of waiting for a response from the South Tyneside Council to our petition and promise of a meeting for them to explain their actions over this inappropriate development all they do is to send a letter to residents affected by the noise repeating the deceit that it is built to approved plans.

In the letter the Head of Development Services says:-

The approved dimensions of the steelwork are:
Proposed height 15.5m at the River Drive end. The gradient of the slipway is 2.66m over the length of the shelter. This would mean the height at the riverside end would be 18.16m above the slipway;
Proposed length 22m;
Proposed width 12.2m.

This is not true, there is no supporting documentation held by the Panning Office to support the  statement that the proposed height of 15.5m at the River Drive has been approved.

The dimensions of the shed measured by the Council in September are as follows:
Length 22.254m
Width 13.1m
Height at end facing River Drive 15.5m (over 50ft)
Height at end facing river 18m

The height of of structure as given by Paul Kelly in the Gazette in September and repeated 01-Apr-2014: 11m (36ft).

The authorised planned height at the road end is 12.5m(41ft)
This is taken from the elevation of river end of plans submitted by the agents for Tyne Docks at about the same time, September 2013, which give at the river end:
width 12.2m and height 15.5m

Press Release
For immediate release
Date of Release: 2.4.2014
Contact: Melanie Todd
From the concerned petitioners
Over 150 sign petition against riverside construction at South Shields.
Petition against “anti-social and environmentally hazardous” development at River Drive, South Shields.
A petition signed by over 150 residents and visitors to the area is to be delivered to the Chief Executive of South Tyneside Council at Town Hall offices this Thursday (3.4.2014).
The petition concerns the closure of an historic shipyard at Redheads Landing, Commercial Road, and its re-siting in new sheds downstream and amongst residential riverside properties at River Drive, South Shields.
Complaints to the Council have been made by numerous local residents over the last six months against the construction in close proximity to residential and retirement homes of a shipyard shed breaching size restrictions and environmental conditions for planning consent dating back to 1996. Complaints have also been formally registered against a pre-planning proposal from the developers, UK Docks, to build another two sheds and to install a 70 ton crane onto the site in order to carry out heavy lifting, shot-blasting, and ship repair commissions.
Local concern has focused on alleged failures by South Tyneside Council Planning and Environmental Services to enforce planning law under their mandatory statutory obligations.
The petitioners’ protest is against:
✦ A lack of relevant information from STMBC
✦ A lack of public consultation on the unannounced construction
✦ A lack of research and impact surveys
✦ Alleged failures by STMBC in its performance of mandatory statutory obligations to enforce planning law
✦ Alleged breach of planning law by the developers, UK Docks, in failing to abide by planning permission conditions and failing to build to approved plans.
The petitioners have asked that the Council observe its own Development Framework Core Strategy Objectives:
“To protect and enhance the boroughs coastline and water frontage; to ensure that the individual and cumulative effects of development do not breach noise, hazardous substances or pollution limits; to increase public involvement in decision making and civic activity”.
STMBC Planning Manager Gordon Atkinson recently wrote to residents conceding that: “the new structure is not being constructed in accordance with the approved plans, and that conditions of the 1996 permission have not been complied with” (20.3.2014).
Local resident Melanie Todd added: “The non-compliant practices of the developers appear to have fallen outside their own land usage covenants. Residents wish to live in peace and harmony with appropriate light industry as we have for many years, supporting the cultural heritage and natural environment of the area for the benefit of residents and visitors. We believe this new development and plans for heavy industrial use at Tyne Slipway, next to residential and retirement property, threaten to disrupt this”.
For further information, please see the petitioners’ website at:

Home

– ends –
For more information, contact Melanie Todd at:
melanietodd@me.com
2.4.2014

I have acquired a series of maps from the Ordnance Survey which detail the use of the land going back over a century together with an overlay trace showing the modern detail and allowing us to see how the riverside has developed over the years.
I’m guessing these will be of general interest to all as well as potentially helping us challenge the Councils contentions that the site has been designated  as ‘industrial’’. For example I think I’m able to prove that Velva Liquids occupied a site co-extensive with the Harbour View development and formed no part of the present Tyne slipway, contrary to those contentions.

On the 21st of January this year the developer, Tyne Slipway and Engineering Co Ltd, relaunched with TSL Marine Services, Gosport, as UK Docks in 2010, was sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court for safety failings after a teenage apprentice, Jason Burden, 19, from South Shields was crushed and killed at UK Docks’ South Dock site in Sunderland.

Tyne Slipway and Engineering Co Ltd was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay £47,936.57 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The court was told the company had no documented risk assessment and no documented safety management system for the work being carried out at the time, and that the incident
could have been prevented. (See HSE press release website: http://press.hse.gov.uk/2014/firm-sentenced-after-teenageapprentice-crushed-to-death/ )

In the context of cuts to the HSE’s budget of approximately £80m to 85m per year¹ and drastic reductions in preventative inspections², recent observations by local residents at the UK Docks construction site at River Drive, South Shields, have led to evidence being passed
to Health and Safety Executive officers who have taken appropriate action against the company involved for “unsafe working practice”.

1 http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/health-and-safety-executive/news/healthandsafetyhse.cfm
2 http://pacelegal.com.au/tag/low-life-how-the-government-has-put-a-low-price-on-your-life/
3 North East marine engineering firm sentenced for safety failings

For those that do not know: Nexus run the North/South Shields Ferries. The ferries are maintained on the slipway on River Drive and that appears to be, currently, the only use of the yard.

To Quote:-
“The Nexus Environment Policy sets the principles and values by which Nexus will operate. The environment strategy sets out the following core objectives:

• To assess and reduce the environmental impact caused by Nexus operations and the operations of companies supplying us and working on our behalf
• To engender an organisational culture of sustainability that supports and promotes environmentally ethical behaviours
• To make a positive contribution to the cultural and economic development of Tyne and Wear in an environmentally sustainable way
• To play a key role in partnership with local authorities and transport operators to develop and implement environmentally sustainable transport policies that will be efficient, effective and economic”

If you wish to see the whole page go to the Nexus Website.

3 March 2014       To the Chief Executive STMBC,

The attached signatories are concerned about recent developments at Tyne Slipway and Engineering Ltd, River Drive, South Shields.
We protest at:
1.    A lack of relevant information from STMBC
2.    A lack of public consultation on the unannounced construction
3.    Lack of research and impact surveys
4.    Apparent negligence by STMBC
5.    Apparent breach of planning law by the developers

We are concerned that by its actions in this case STMBC is in breach of its own Local Development Framework Core Strategy Objectives, eg. “to protect and enhance the boroughs coastline and water frontage; to ensure that the individual and cumulative effects of development do not breach noise, hazardous substances or pollution limits; to increase public involvement in decision making and civic activity”.

Local residents wish to live in peace and harmony with appropriate light industry as we have for many years, supporting the cultural heritage and environment of the area for the benefit of residents and visitors. We believe the new development at Tyne Slipway threatens to disrupt this.

Yours sincerely,
Signatories attached.

Are residents of Greens Place and Harbour View being treated fairly by South Tyneside Council over the issue of the shed on the slipway on River Drive?

If you think the answer is no and you wish to do something about it even if it is just adding your voice to the numbers protesting about its presence please get in touch. If have friends who do not have access to the WWW then please contact* us on their behalf.

If anyone has any old newspaper clippings about this  please let us know the publication and date or scan it and send it in.

If anyone has any correspondence about the slipway shed that they feel the can share, again please contact us.

*A post box is not available as the administration of the site is not static and may not be local.