Horrified homeowners are being threatened with court action by a council if they do not reduce the height of their fences. Locals in Lliswerry, Newport, began receiving enforcement notices from the city council last year after one resident had a lengthy battle with the authority over the size of her fence.
If a fence is on the highway, it requires planning permission if it is going to be one metre tall or more, Wales Online reports. Four distressed residents who claim they are being targeted have pointed to numerous other fences in the area but because they have been up for more than four years, they are allowed to stay.
One local has two fences that are the same height but she needs to destroy the newest one. Angela Cureton, 78, proudly started painting her fence a dark green colour days after she had forked out thousands of pounds on it last summer.
Little did she know that Corinne Winslett, who lived around the corner, was already having her own problems with the council over her fence, which led the council to investigate other almost identical fences having gone up in Lliswerry. Four people have now been handed enforcement notices and some of them insist they will be taking the "farcical" situation to court at a time where the local authority is hiking Council Tax charges.
A Newport City Council spokesman said the body has a legal obligation to enforce action and that court action is only taken if remedial action is not undertaken. Angela, who has recently suffered two heart-attacks said: “Just before December I received the first letter, and of course when I saw it I became very upset.
“You can see the fence gives me privacy. The letter said by law it shouldn’t have been erected and that I needed permission. I took it personally, I took it as though people had been complaining."
The council has sent Angela a plan of what she needs to do to avoid court action which includes knocking down the fence and rebuilding it to around half its size, which will likely come with a hefty cost. She said: “Where on earth am I going to get the money from?”
Corinne says she's prepared to go to court over her fence which divides the driveways between her and her neighbour. She said: “The only avenues I have is to pay the gentleman who built the fence to take it down, but that would cost me £300, so the only other option is to appeal, which would cost me £280.
"I’m not in a position to pay that so I’ll have to go to court. Mine started because of a complaint. They said they couldn’t see off the end of the drive. But if you drive around the estate you’ll see so many other similar fences. When I got the letter I thought it was a joke."
Another woman Lianne Garnett who's been told to remove her fence says taking it down will leave her with no privacy in her garden. Part of her fence, which was built by the previous owners in 2016 was rotting so she replaced it in 2019 with a composite fence which stretches a few metres at most.
Lianne explained while pointing towards the older fence to her left: "That was up more than four years ago now, so everything up to here is okay From here [to the right] all we’ve done is take the rotting fence down and replace it. There is no difference in height, but we’ve been told it needs to come down. It’s ridiculous.”
Councillor Allan Morris said: "The fences don't look bad. If someone had made a fence out of crates you could understand. If people had been complaining to us we'd understand it, but we've not had anyone come to us. It doesn't make sense.
"We are talking about a time where the council can't empty people's bins every couple of weeks but they are prepared to spend money taking action in this way against people with fences that are attracting very few complaints. It's a case of what the council sees as its priorities."
A council spokesperson said: “Newport City Council is legally obliged to investigate complaints in relation to breaches of planning regulations and, if necessary, take action including the serving of enforcement notices. Enforcement notices were served on two properties in the Lliswerry area after complaints about unauthorised fences were received.
"The council then received a large number of complaints about differing types of means of enclosures for the boundaries of properties in the area. Each was investigated but only four were found to be in breach of planning legislation.
"As a result, enforcement notices were served in each case. Formal enforcement action is a last resort when negotiations have failed to resolve the breach of planning control.
"There is an independent appeal process for people who wish to challenge the notice or an application that has been refused. Court action is only taken if remedial action is not undertaken by the property owner and the council would be able to recover its costs.”
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