ST/0461/14/FUL

This application goes before the Planning Committee of South Tyneside Council which is meeting on February 1st 2016 in Jarrow Town Hall. The agent is Gary Craig Building Services Ltd.

The Council are laying themselves open to ridicule and worse in recommending this application principally because the one of the items is an extension to the existing boat shed.

The existing shed has been built without planning permission. It is 3m too high and 1m too wide. The Planning Manager acceded this in an email 13th Feb 2014 when discussing a drawing sent to the Council a few months before. The Local Residents raised a Petition (some 300 signatories) objecting to the shed and I wrote on behalf of the residents requesting the Council meet and explain themselves.

Some two months later The Head of Development Services wrote in response, in effect saying to the Local Residents (50 or so), that the Planning Manager was wrong and the shed was not 3m too tall. He did not give a reference or provide a drawing to back this statement up but in the Council’s submission to the LGO this would appear to be a drawing numbered 8296/1B. This drawing is highly suspect, principally because it was drawn about 6 months after the grant of permission in 1996 and secondly because it is probably illegal.

He then claimed that he need not take action against UK Docks because the difference in height was not material.

The discrepancy between what the Planning Manager was saying and the Head of Development Services was saying has not been resolved because the Council have consistently evaded the subject or made denials about the height of the shed.