Elderly couple face having to rip down £4,500 fence because it’s the wrong colour

A retired couple have been ordered to rip down a £4,500 seven-foot-high fence they built to stop neighbours snooping into their garden.

David and Denise Hopwood, from Bolton, erected the 25 metre long, grey composite fence around their home for privacy and ease of maintenance.

It replaced an old, nine-foot-high hedge that they were finding difficult and expensive to maintain because of their age and disabilities.

However, a neighbour complained about its height, forcing David, 67, and Denise, 66, to seek retrospective planning permission.

The couple were told permission had been refused because it was out of touch with the ‘character and appearance of the surrounding area’.

The retirees hit back, saying that the hedge had cost £800 a year to look after and that the fence – complete with a 1 ft tall trellis and gravel boards – had ‘transformed’ their life.

At the time, the couple appealed the decision, but this week, following a site visit last month, the council doubled down and left them facing having to pull down the fence.

A document gave five reasons for why the council dismissed their appeal, claiming its location, materials, colour, size, ‘appears a discordant and strident feature in the street scene’.

David said: ‘We both have arthritis and the hedge was out of control, we weren’t able to look after it. We put it up for privacy and security, and it is ideal for maintenance purposes.

‘I feel we have been hard done by saying it doesn’t fit with the street scene, there isn’t one size that fits all here. They seem to be focused on the colour and the type, but there is a right mix already on the street. The colour is our choice, I don’t understand why it is an issue.’

‘There is a jet black one across the road, a number of brick ones, I feel like we have been picked on,’ he added.

Following the removal of the hedge, the couple said they resorted to pegging blankets on the washing line to stop passers-by looking into their home before they put up the fence.

The property sits on the corner of Plodder Lane and Duchy Avenue, opposite open fields and countryside, which contribute to what is described as ‘semi-rural character’.

While there is some variation in boundary treatments along the road, the inspector noted that homes are typically characterised by relatively open frontages with low walls, timber fencing or railings, often softened by mature hedging.

The report said the 2.1m-high fence, positioned at the back edge of the pavement, is ‘very prominent’ when travelling along Plodder Lane.

Despite being topped with a decorative trellis, it was found to fully enclose the frontage and appear ‘at odds with the open frontages, low walls and hedgerows of the dwellings opposite’.

The inspector also said the black composite panels ‘stark contrast’ with the red brick of the house and adjoining lower wall, describing the structure as a ‘discordant and strident feature in the street scene’.

The report said they considered the personal circumstances of the appellant – including privacy and security – but there was little evidence to claim that the ‘height and materiality of the fence is necessary to achieve the security and privacy’.

They also said there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to suggest that a ‘safe and private environment for David’s home ‘could not be achieved in a manner which causes less harm to the character and appearance of the area.

The couple say they have yet to receive an enforcement notice, but if they were forced to pull it down, they said it would be ‘terrible’.

He said: ‘The appeal is the end of the line; an enforcement notice is usually the next course of action. The whole ordeal has been very stressful.

‘Hopefully they will just order us to change the colour and not replace it with something else.’

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