Composite fencing in Cheltenham

This is for you if

• You have re-treated the same timber fence every other spring since you moved in and you have had enough of it
• Your concrete posts and gravel boards are still solid, but the timber panels between them have gone soft along the bottom
• The fence runs behind a deep planted border and you cannot get a brush to it without taking the border apart
• You want a grey or charcoal boundary that stays that colour without a tin of paint every couple of years
• You are on one of the newer estates around Bishop's Cleeve, Up Hatherley or Leckhampton and want a rear boundary that does not look like every other builder's lap panel on the street
• You are having the garden landscaped and want the boundary finished first, so nothing has to be brushed or lifted out again once the paving and planting go in

What the job includes

• A site measure and a written quote itemised per metre: slats, aluminium posts and caps, post bases, finishing profiles, Postcrete and labour, so you can see what each line costs
• An honest read on your existing concrete posts and gravel boards: sound, upright, correctly spaced and slotted deep enough, or past saving. Where they pass, they stay in and the aluminium posts come off the quote
• Aluminium posts set in Postcrete, one bag per post, with the post bases concreted in rather than driven on spikes
• Capped, co-extruded slats specified on any run that takes the full afternoon sun, and a sample slat left with you for a week so you see the colour wet and dry in your own garden before we order
• The old fence taken down, concrete footings broken out where they have to come out, and the lot taken away. Priced as its own line so you can see what the removal costs
• The manufacturer's warranty for the exact panel you are quoted, written into the quote with its conditions, so you know what the 15 to 25 years covers and what voids it

Planning and the rules that apply

Composite sits under the same permitted development rules as timber: Class A of the GPDO 2015 allows up to 2 metres above ground level in a rear or side garden, and 1 metre where the fence is adjacent to a highway used by vehicular traffic, including that highway's footpath, so most garden runs in Cheltenham need no planning permission. Those rights are switched off entirely within the curtilage of a listed building at any height, and they can be removed by an Article 4 direction or by a condition on the original estate permission, which is worth checking on the newer estates. Cheltenham's conservation areas do not lower the height limit for putting a fence up, though taking down a wall or fence of 1 metre or more next to a highway, waterway or open space (2 metres elsewhere) generally needs permission for relevant demolition, and the national rules are only a starting point, so confirm with Cheltenham Borough Council before work starts.