Legal height for garden pergola/arbour?

longtimelurker54

Hi

We've heard there is a legal height for fences in a garden. We have standard height fence but because houses are terraced on a slope neighbours can easily see into our garden as they also have a raised patio their side and there's a problem with loud, aggressive kids we'd like to screen out if poss. so we have some privacy,

We're thinking of buying some wood and making our own pergola to trail privacy plants up. We'd like to make it as tall as between 2 or 2.5 metres. It will be placed only on our patio area only which is around 2 - 3 metres wide so not the whole length of the garden.

Are we allowed to do this or are there legal height restrictions? The worst it would do I guess is cast a small shadow on neighbour's side. It would not be attractive to look at at first but once flowers etc have covered it it would look good.

I know the best thing would be to talk to neighbours about it but the relationship isn't good. Thx for any advice.

ormus

afaik there are no general height restrictions on garden structures like pergolas.
2m will certainly be ok. no one could object to that.
(2.5m would probably be ok too).

noapron

Certainly our neighbour built their 'summerhouse' right next to the fence at the bottom of our garden - not an attractive structure by any stretch of the imagination and it's about 2.5 metres in height. It would be lovely if they trailed plants on it. The standard fence height here is 6 feet but we are on a fairly level site.

Years ago I was told by a planning chap I contacted because our fence had partially blowndown in a gale and we'd been advised to let the ground settle before putting in new ground spikes in to rebuild, that he could force me to take down a fence over the allowed height, but not put one up. As you may guess our neighbours were fussing that we didn't intend to put it up again and they would have no privacy. I don't think there are major regs about pergolas and the like. Even the garden shed next door towers above the fence, so I don't think you should have a problem. Your best bet though, may be to pre-empt your neighbours if you think they would complain, and call the council yourself. And if you think about it, you could plant leylandii which would grow quickly and high and they couldn't say boo.