How High Can a Garden Fence Be?

When you are putting up or replacing a fence, height is the first decision and the one most likely to cause a problem later. Get it wrong and you can end up taking it down again. Here is what applies in practice.

Are there rules and regulations?

Yes, and they vary depending on your local authority. As a general position, walls and fences in a back garden should be a maximum of two metres high, which is just over six and a half feet. In a front garden that halves to one metre, roughly 3.2 feet.

You will need to apply to your council for planning permission if your fence is more than one metre high and sits next to a highway used by vehicles, or next to a footpath. You will also need permission for any fence or wall over two metres anywhere else.

Most fences in the UK are no higher than two metres, so that height works well and looks right in the majority of gardens.

Replacing an existing fence

This is the part people are most often relieved to hear. The height rules do not affect replacing like for like. If a fence of a given height is already there, putting the same thing back is maintenance rather than a change.

The exceptions worth checking

• Listed buildings. If your boundary adjoins the land of a listed building, extra restrictions apply.
• Conservation areas. Local authorities frequently impose tighter limits inside conservation zones.
• Covenants. Some newer estates carry restrictive covenants on boundary treatments that have nothing to do with planning law.

Check your local council website before ordering anything. Further detail is available on the government's planning portal.

Talk to your neighbour first

A neighbour cannot stop you putting up a fence you are entitled to put up. Even so, it is worth a conversation before you start. A new fence changes light levels and can affect established planting on the other side, and five minutes of warning tends to prevent years of friction.

Which size posts should I use?

The taller the fence, the more it is affected by high winds and bad weather. This is the single biggest reason fences fail early.

For that reason, standard 6ft fencing is designed to be built with 8ft posts, whether those posts are timber or concrete, because at least two feet of the post needs to be in the ground for it to be secure. Cutting that short is the false economy that brings a fence down in the first big storm.

Which style suits which height?

Height and style are not independent decisions.

• 6ft, for privacy and security. Close board or lap panels will both deliver it, and both look right at that height.
• 5ft with a 1ft trellis top. Reaches the same six feet but lets light through the top section, which matters in a narrow garden.
• Waist height at the front. Where privacy is not the point, a picket fence marks the boundary and keeps the frontage open.

If you would like to talk any of this through against your actual garden, we will come out and look. Our fencing page covers the styles in more detail, and the timber colour guide deals with the next decision after height.