A planning inspector has overturned Worcester City Council’s enforcement order, allowing a 1.5-metre garden fence at the corner of Columbia Drive and Quebec Close in Lower Wick to remain in place.
The council had initially demanded the fence’s removal, or alternatively that it be relocated at least two metres from the road or reduced in height to one metre. Another option offered was moving the fence 1.7 metres back combined with planting a hedgerow between the fence and pavement.
However, planning inspector M Savage found issues with the council’s proposed solutions, noting that removing and relocating the fence would itself count as new development, subject to permission and therefore uncertain.
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To successfully appeal, the resident had to prove the fence had been erected more than four years before the enforcement notice, issued on August 1, 2024. Evidence submitted by the appellant’s partner and Webb Maintenance Ltd, the company that installed the fence, indicated it was completed between July 20 and 22, 2020, supported by a dated photograph from July 30, 2020.
Based on this, the inspector ruled on the “balance of probabilities” that the fence had stood for longer than four years before the notice date, meaning the appeal was valid and the enforcement order was quashed.
Attempts to gain retrospective approval for the fence and a related house extension at 100 Columbia Drive had been rejected by the council in July 2024.