Boundary Fence with trellis attached to the top !!!!

Hi All

Oh yes its the boundary fence question again that rears its ugly head every now and again on here .

Came in from work thinking " 3 days off yippee" then when I opened the door brown envelope sitting on the mat from the Local Council saying my fence at the bottom of the garden is too high had a complaint from a person who walks his/her dog on the other side of the river !!! .

• Fence 7 feet high (should be no more than 2 metres)
• Trellis 1 foot on top of that
• No houses on the other side of the River
• Out side of fence I have planted hawthorn/ blackthorn/holly/ native hedge
• Fence is now 2 years old

I know the fence was not meant to exceed 2 metres but the Enviromental Agency gave me permission (kept all the letters) as my garden slopes down and to put a 6 foot fence in meant everyone could peer in as they had been doing and I mean stoping to have a blooming good nose and a chat about the house garden etc or me with just my boxer shorts on and a pair of slippers having a cuppa.

My question is if I do have to take 12 inches off the fence can I leave the trellis in place or will this also have to be reduced to the standard of 2 metres as they have stated ?. If you look at my photo album I attached the trellis to the inside posts and have wisteria honeysuckle and a grapvine now estabilshed plus bird box on the fence with bluetits nesting .
It just drives me mad as before I had leylandi over 70 feet in height and at least 20 feet in width that robbed the garden and house of sunlight no one moaned about that !!!nor did the council help to pay the removal ££££

Across the river is private land so unless the landowner has given permission which I dont think is the case they are tresspasing and the dog poo they dont bother to clean up after them some do most dont !!!

I know its early days and they have to follow up the complaint and from the letter somone has been on MY property/Land to measure that it is over the 2 metres !!
They want me to fill out aplication form but before I do this I wanted to get all the fact right as I will ask for a site visit so they can see properly from inside the garden .

Sorry to go on but I am not in the best of moods , as the battle with the Enviroment Agency went on for 12 months before I could keep the fence so all of this has just opened up a old wound.


Spruce
ps happy for a PM if you would rather ??

 

sorry cant be of much help but i know with me council is solid fence/ wall had to be no higher then 2meters but i could have trellis on top with foliage growing to cover

 

Sorry to hear of your troubles. If you go to one of the garden law forums, they have some very knowledgeable peeps there

 

Sorry to hear this Spruce, drives me nuts when you get these pathetic people with nothing better to do other than find something to complain about, either that or they're just the nosey sort who can't see in your garden because of the slightly higher fence . As you mentioned you obviously improved the boundry with the native planting on oneside of the fence and the bird box etc.

As mentioned, write back to the council explaining the permission letters and even briefly describing how you've improved the boundry but don't worry too much just yet..

Hope this works out well..

 

I wish you well too Spruce.Hopefully, common sense will prevail.

 

And you could always ask in that letter that the council explain exactly what problem your fence is causing the person who complained.

 

Hi Spruce.
I sypathise with your plight.
The suggestion of telling the Council you have the Environment Agency permission is a good one. As said, don't give any details. It will take all Summer for them to check anyway.
An option may be to take down the 12" trellis and replace it with Reed Screening - it's not fencing and would be inside your property (just). If you want to you could refit the trellis behind is to aid rigidity.
You could also cite Security issues and ask if they prefer broken glass shards glued to the top (and risk Animal Rights reactions - which you would obviously direct to the Council as they were responsible)
For the sake of 6" it seems a bit of a "Jobsworth" reaction, particularly as there are no neighbour issues at stake.

 

I'm sure you are annoyed Spruce i know i would be too.....sorry i can't offer any constructive advice but why can't people mind their own buisnessWhat gives them the right to be gorping into your garden anyway it's a shame they don't pay more attention to picking up their dogs 'waste' instead.....it's a sore subject with me....
Sorry rant over....for now

 

The environment agency letter is also evidence that you took the trouble to get it right in the first place too. What about the person who owns the land on the other side, would s/he support you?

 

Just had another thought, as you've planted on the other side, is this fence a boundary fence at all or could it be a "garden structure" with the hedge being the boundary? I think wooden garden structures can go higher and don't need planning because wood isn't considered permanent.

 

Annoying, maddening, irritating and just plain stupid, no wonder you're fuming, but - first rule of dealing with eejits is .... keep your cool.

I'd love to be able to give you a definitive answer, but since regulations (not to mention their interpretation) vary so widely, I'm afraid I can't. I can only pass on what I've discovered from personal experience.

So far as I can see, the only thing you may have done is a): to have planted outside your property boundary (and as I understand it, this is an offence in England - if you do it without permission - even if you do use native species), or b): upset some dog walking Council jobsworth, after all, I don't take a tape with me when I walk my dog on the off-chance I come across a fence slightly higher than normal.

The first thing I'd suggest (although I'm assuming you may already have done so) is check your local Council regs. I didn't know they varied, but in the past, (when moving from one county to another - both in England), I found that whilst in the first, trellis did count as part of the overall height, in the second they were concerned only with the height of the actual fence itself - something to do with the fence being classed as a 'permanent' structure, but the trellis on top as only 'temporary' - which is how my neighbour comes to have a boundary 'fence' with an overall height of more than 12'! The obvious way round this of course is, if your trellis isn't physically attached to the fence itself, then no matter how close it may be, it can't possibly be classed as part of it!

 

Thanks for this everyone it does cheer me up, just so you know my boundary line is half way across the river , plus no right of way at the back of the fence but Enviromenta Agency need to be able to walk along the enbankment which they can do.

Fidgetmum I will get all the info next week from the council about whats permited they dont know who they are taking on I know all about Freedom of information requests so if it all turns sour I will go hell for leather ), lady acros the road has just added 3 panels on top of a brick wall with trellis I am 6 feet 1 and I know its over 7 feet high and the council let her keep that even though hers is on the side of the pavement and the highway so I will be pulling all this together.

I will keep you all posted , they cant do anything yet with the bird box

Plus I can stay nice and cool in a dispute verbaly or written

Thanks again Team GC

Spruce

 

Just had a thought - extend your fence out to the middle of the river, put a gate either side, give a spare set of keys to the Environment Agency (so that they still gain access) and then - and this is the best bit - in large letters paint "........" well, I'm guessing you could think what you might like to paint on the other side!

 

How do the council know that the fence is to high? My guess is that they wouldn't have been out to measure it, and are only acting upon the complaint.

I would just write back to them stating that your fence meets all required regulations as were defined within planning guidelines which were in place at the time of erection some two years ago, and state that it still meets current regs.
Ask how they came to determine that it was too high, and then to cover your backside, by simply putting a 200mm gravel board on your side, and bring the soil level up to meet the top of this. This will reduce your fence height taken from ground level at the highest point to way below the max allowed height.