The strange and ridiculous rules between fences and hedges in England.
Everyone knows how the English people love their gardens.
They are in love with flowers, plants and trees but when they decide to build a bit of privacy around their houses, the no sense of the British law based probably on antiquate Victorian Rules appears.
Everyone knows how criminality in the UK is rising due to the lack of police forces and the youngest without control and education following gangs, drug dealers and mad tiktoker superstars.
Unfortunately, most of the houses in the UK do not have a gate, a fence or any protection to fight this crime.
The excuse is that people use the rear garden and the front one is just for the car or for some pot of flowers. Unfortunately, this is a big mistake because most crimes start from the front door. Moreover, many houses have a beautiful front garden that could be used for recreational intents but for a wrong tradition, English people prefer using only the packed and noisy rear garden shared with unrespectful neighbours with crazy kids or old men cutting their grass every single day.
By the way, if you decide to spend money on a fence you need planning permission if it is higher than 1 metre on the front garden.
I say 1 metre! A 5-year-old Kid nowadays is 1 mt high! What kind of protection and privacy can give a fence of only 1 mt?
Instead, if the fence is not facing the front door, it can be 2 m high!
I mean if you look at the house on the front you have a small fence and all of a sudden a wall of two meters. Someone from the council can explain to me where is the aesthetic of this.
I can understand the 1 m rule if the fence stops the view of the drivers because it is on the highway, but if it is a small road why the councils do not allow the owners to build a fence of at least 1.60 cm? If the fence is in wood and is well kept can only bring value to the area instead of gardens abandoned.
But here arrives the stupidity of the English law.
If you instead have a passion for gardening and have enough money to buy a high hedge from a landscape company you can have on the front of the house bushes more than 2 m high!
The fence is allowed until 1 metre instead a hedge can be higher than 2 metres.
Someone could explain the reason for this law?
Moreover, the hedges make lots of mess in Autumn, when the trees start to lose their leaves and the council must spend a fortune to clean drains and streets.
The best solution then?
Build a faked hedge, a plastic one. The council can not do anything against it because it is not touching the ground and can be removed at any time of the year. Surely is not the best for the environment but this happens when in a country there is only a chaotic system.
Thanks for reading