With reference to the letter we have received this morning by post giving notice of the application from UK Docks planning proposal dated 20 June 2014. This was not posted (as per the envelope date stamp until 23 June), and not received by our household, 84,Greens Place, until Tuesday 24 June 2014. Therefore technically I do not believe you can enforce that we only have 21 days from the date on the letter to make representations. I await your advise on a new deadline in line with the receipt of the information.

Furthermore I would like you to advise on why this application will go straight to the Planning Committee, as outlined in your correspondence. And what consultations and appropriate impact surveys will be carried out regarding this planned development ahead of the Planning Committee? Will there be site visits and consultations with local residents by the Committee members and reviews of STMBC Local Strategic Plan with regard to the proposed development of this area?

With STMBC knowing the issues regarding the development of this site in close proximity to established residential housing, our own house has been here since 1843 and most likely built on the site of earlier dwellings, have any other more appropriate sites for this development been investigated ahead of this planning application by either the Owners of UK Docks or STMBC? I understand that Port of Tyne offered UK Docks a more appropriate site for their work immediately to the east of McNulty’s yard.

In your letter under the heading MATERIAL PLANNING CONSIDERATIONS  you state “Matters relating to rights to light, property values, or private covenants cannot be considered as a material planning consideration in the assessment of any planning application.” Please supply by return any documents or references to current legislation upon which STMBC has based this statement.

The existing shed still under construction at River Drive is not built to plan and should be removed. All the conditions attached to the 1996 planning permission have been breached and should be enforced. It is absurd for STMBC to argue that none of these conditions will be enforced because the developers have not built to plan. These kinds of arguments emanating from STMBC planning are clearly not even-handed between the interests of the developers and those of local residents who are left with little faith in the planning process, and which bring into disrepute the Planning Authority. A petition signed by over 200 people objecting to the development under construction at this site has been addressed and delivered to the Chief Executive of STMBC and re-directed by Democratic Services to George Mansbridge. Know that I object to theses un-democratic actions, and to the further development of the site as outlined in the planning application to which your letter refers. I have looked online and notice that the plans to which your letter refers are not to be found on the planning portal – in the same way that the plans for the shed under construction were also not publicised on the planning portal or indeed in any other way before construction began in September 2013. Taken together with the existing construction, these new plans represent a concerted effort to re-site heavy industrial works within a residential area, in very close proximity to residential and retirement housing. The work planned by the developer to be undertaken on this site is quite unacceptable for reasons of nuisance, noise, pollution, and a severely adverse affect upon the visual amenity of the area for residents and visitors.

Yours sincerely,

Melanie Todd, resident