Is there any restrictions to the height of a fence

grant1wish

Hi,

We are currently in the process of getting a very sloping garden levelled. At the weekend the soil (15 ton) has been dropped off, and in the bottom corner of the garden the soil is now only about 2 ft below the top of the fence (sounds dodgy, but a wall and footings have been built).

Basically, to stop us being able to step over the fence and fall 6ft the other side, and also for privacy we now want to add some trellis to the top of the fence. It is going to need to be about 5ft or so on top of a 6 ft fence. Is there any restrictions by law, or can we just put it up.

Out of interest, the neighbours also levelled their garden, and built a fence inside the current fence. This is about 4 ft above our fence, so am hoping that it will not be a problem if we do the same kind of thing along the bottom of our garden.

Hope this makes sense,

Thanks

G1W

alanobrien

grant1wish wrote:

Hi,

We are currently in the process of getting a very sloping garden levelled. At the weekend the soil (15 ton) has been dropped off, and in the bottom corner of the garden the soil is now only about 2 ft below the top of the fence (sounds dodgy, but a wall and footings have been built).

Basically, to stop us being able to step over the fence and fall 6ft the other side, and also for privacy we now want to add some trellis to the top of the fence. It is going to need to be about 5ft or so on top of a 6 ft fence. Is there any restrictions by law, or can we just put it up.

Out of interest, the neighbours also levelled their garden, and built a fence inside the current fence. This is about 4 ft above our fence, so am hoping that it will not be a problem if we do the same kind of thing along the bottom of our garden.

Hope this makes sense,

Thanks


G1W

I would check your house deeds and covenants.
Unless there is some stipulation in your deeds for the house you should be ok.

There is also the issue of neighbours right to light but if that is not relavent in this case and it sounds like it isnt then again you should be ok.

The previous owner of my new place did something similar. In fact the whole row of houses had a 5ft retaining wall built to stop the gardens eroding into a public bridleway. On top of that they put up a 6ft fence and in front of the fence i have a 10 ft leylandii to do battle with.
Stops the garden "disappearing" though

One interesting point is that the residents here all had to get together and obtain planning permission to put up the retaining wall but that was just because it backed on to a public bridle way.

grant1wish

Thanks Alan,

The deeds do not state anything about it so that side of it is OK. The trellis will stop some amount of light going into the garden at the back of us, but the previous owners had a pergola in the corner that came about 4ft above the fence. That in turn had metal grids on it, that had 'mile a minute' plants that completely covered the whole pergola and most of the fence too. So in theory we will be not blocking off any more light than the previous owners did.

Thanks once again

G1W

grumbler

Generally, law allows a fence up to 2m (from your new level) without planning permission. You can find a lot of useful information HERE

grant1wish

Thanks Grumbler,

So it does not matter that they already have a 6 ft fence on their side. We can still add trellising (does this count as fencing) to our side up to 6ft or so?

I am suddenly getting quite worried that they are not going to be happy with about 12 ft of fencing from their side. Although like I said previously there already was about 5 ft of pergola with a mad growing flower on it!

Thanks

G1W

divadee

I think you should speak to your neighbours and tell them what you are going to do. Most disputes start from people not being honest about work going on, and then the neighbours getting hunpy if it disturbs them.

I think your neighbours wont mind, but they will be glad you told them about it first.

grant1wish

Thanks divadee,

I have not personally spoke to them, but the gardener carrying out the work has told them we are intending to put trellis up. The gardener did not say that they objected, so hopefully they will be OK with it. I have never actually spoke to them. The wife did once and the man was quite rude according to my wife, so we have had nothing to do with them. The house does not back onto ours, it is our bottom fence but their side fence so we do not see them at all really.

Thanks

G1W

grumbler

Completely agree with Divadee’s advice about discussing your plans with neighbours.

Legally, you can erect your own fence without any regard to the neighbour’s one. I am not 100% sure, but think that trellises even are not considered as a “fence”.

I guess pergola has following restrictions:
“In the rear garden, any structure that is less than 3m in height with a flat roof or 4m if it has a ridge roof, and takes up less than half the area of the garden and is 5m away from the house does not require planning permission”

grant1wish

Thanks Again Grumbler,

What a great website this is, everyone is just so helpful. I will keep searching to see if trellis is counted as 'fencing' . If not then there is no problem.

Thanks all

G1W

trafalgar_2

In my mothers area planning permission had to be acquired for trelliss that made the fence higher than 6' 6" in total................because your basically heightening the fence by putting it on top of it,sort of fancy fencing:D


If the total is below that ,no permission is required...............and differant councils having differant planning interpretations.

So it is always best to ask................

grant1wish

Thanks Trafalgar,

Just rang the authorities, and planning permission is required for trellis if it takes the fence above 6' 6" from the original ground level (which it obviously does) They also said building a fence on my own land would require planning permission as well!

What happens if I don't get planning permission? If they don't complain am I OK?

Now i'm thinking the gardener should have perhaps warned me of this, and that I have wasted £5000 on a landscaped garden.

G1W