End of stage 2 of the complaints procedure:
From: Michael Dawson
Sent: 04 March 2014 11:09
To: Gordon Atkinson
Cc: Residents
Subject: RE: Slipway Development, River Drive
Dear Mr Atkinson,
With this e-mail I have agreed to act as spokesperson for the local Riverside Residents.
A meeting was held with members of the local community and I can now answer your question as to ‘what kind of action we would like the Council to take’. Thank you also for confirming that the Slipway Shed is not built to the approved 1996 plans*.
The immediate response from residents was to request the slipway construction be removed. However the universally agreed request of Council, is that there is immediate cessation of work on the Slipway Shed until such time as appropriate community consultation with the relevant council departments can be arranged.
* The approved plans gave a height of the landward end of the shed as 12.7m. It is 15.5m as measured by the Council in September 2013 but the Planning Manager while conceding that it was not approved being nearly 3m taller than planned went on to tell his Manager that it was approved at 3m taller than the approved plans indicated.
When the Planning Manager had conceded that the Residents were right and the shed was nearly 3m higher than permitted he should have advised Senior Management and work should have stopped on the shed, 13th February. Work did not stop even after we wrote to the Council on the 3rd of March. At first sight it appears he was telling the residents one thing and the ‘Management’ another but the first response was not from the Council but from the Gazette and while it does not excuse either the Principal Planning Officer or his Manager for lying to us it shows the Gazette had the blessing of the Executive to give a rather distorted view.
| 15 | 01/04/14 Misinformation |
Shields Gazette repeats misinformation of 9th and 10th Sept; “At the time, a spokesman for UK Docks said: “All I can say is that we have been through all the controls with the planners, and the work meets all the necessary legal requirements. “All we are doing is going ahead with the previous planning permission.” The shed is taller and wider than planned. It is being built without planning permission. To say it meets legal requirement s to mean it is approved is a fraudulent misrepresentation! |
| 16 | 04/04/14 Evasion Back Pass |
Head of Development Services advised of inaccuracies about the shed in the local press. Ignored, Letter passed back down chain. Email of 4-Apr back to the very staff being complained about on the 2-May. |
| 17 | 02/05/14 Evasion? |
Conduct of planning staff queried with Head of Development Services. Completely Ignored |
| 18 | 02/05/14 Mis- representation |
Misrepresentation 1: Letter to Residents in response to Petition wrongly claims approved height of 15.5m at the road end. The drawing, apparently referred to, was: a) not approved; b) in error in the dimension at the road end.. |
| 19 | 02/05/14 Mis- representation |
Misrepresentation 2: Apart from the width these dimensions are either entirely in accordance with the approved plan, or subject to such minor deviation that they are properly categorised as non-material changes. Wrong: The shed is 2.7m higher than the approved drawings say. |
| 20 | 02/05/14 Mis- representation |
Misrepresentation 3: It was following queries raised in mid-January that that the plans were re-examined. We discovered that the overall width of the steelwork at ground level was shown as 12.2m on the plan, not 12.9m as previously understood. Nonsense, the derived dimension 12.9m is false and a deliberate misrepresentation of the plans. |
| 21 | 09/05/14 In Denial |
Letter to Head of development Services about misrepresentations of drawings in response to Petition.* Understandably ignored, because the lack of building control would have been exposed. |
* Letter to Head of development Services, correcting what he had been told by his planning manager and asking, “In the light of this please consider a correction to the letters sent to the households 32 to 99 Greens Place and all the households in Harbour View.”