Replacing a hedge with a wall...

[KatieandAlex]

Hi all,

I am after some advice and like many others, have spent ages on the net looking for answers but still none the wiser!

So, we have recently bought our first home and the driveway is quite tight - passengers have to get out of the car before we can access the driveway! There is currently a hedge with soil and paving slabs down the side and we would like to remove this and replace it with a nice 3 foot wall and 3 foot fence on the top which would give us easily an extra foot, making things not so tight!

Drive

• KatieandAlex
• 6 Feb 2015
• 1

We have concerns in that if we did remove the hedge, next doors fence may fall down! Obviously, we don't want it to fall down but we need to get the drive sorted. I have contacted our local Borough Council for guidance but wondered if anyone had any advice or guidance for this sort of thing?

Thanks in advance!

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

As there is already a fence there, why would you want to build another wall and fence next to that one?

And no idea why you think the council will advise!

 

[KatieandAlex]

As there is already a fence there, why would you want to build another wall and fence next to that one?

And no idea why you think the council will advise!

The fence is next doors - his house and driveway is higher up than ours. If we removed the hedge, there is every possibility that his fence will fall down.

Why will the Council not advise?!

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

So you just need a small retaining wall then. Depends on the condition of the fence and how deep the posts are and what they are sitting in i would say.

Still don't see why you need a 3ft wall with a fence on top. Or are you saying that you think once you remove the hedge their fence will fall down and you will be replacing it with a wall and fence? What does your neighbour think of that?

The council are under no obligation to advise because that is not their job to advise you. Its your wall. As a garden wall its not a matter for Building Control.

 

[KatieandAlex]

So you just need a small retaining wall then. Depends on the condition of the fence and how deep the posts are and what they are sitting in i would say.

Still don't see why you need a 3ft wall with a fence on top. Or are you saying that you think once you remove the hedge their fence will fall down and you will be replacing it with a wall and fence? What does your neighbour think of that?

The council are under no obligation to advise because that is not their job to advise you. Its your wall. As a garden wall its not a matter for Building Control.

I guess we wont know how tall the wall will need to be until we remove the hedge as like you say, it all depends on the condition of the fence and how deep the posts are.

We haven't spoke to the neighbour yet, when we was looking at buying the house, he did come out and talk to us and we said that we was thinking of removing the hedge and he was all 'yeh do what you like, its your garden' etc. but now when we see him and say hello, he just grunts and walks off...

I went to the council to see if I needed to notify them as we wasn't sure if we needed to apply for any building or planning regs - we are new to it all and want to make sure we are doing it correctly!

 

[Andyc84]

My suggestion,

take out what is there, replace the slabs with an appropriate retaining wall, to hold your neighbours driveway up, but it doesn't have to be 3 foot, just a suitable height.

The only reason you would need to put anything higher up would be to replace your neighbours fence... you could just replace his fence, get him to confirm he will keep maintaing it though as his fence, you are just replacing like for like, if needed.

 

[Deleted2797112]

If you de-stabilise your neighbour's land by removing whatever is currently retaining it, you will have to replace what you remove with something that will will perform the same function.

If your drive is adjacent to the public highway, you can put up a fence or wall to a maximum height of 1m without planning permission. If you want to go higher, you need planning permission.

Planning Portal