Fence repair in Cheltenham

This is for you if

• One post has snapped off at ground level and the panels either side are still sound.
• The run tips a little further towards next door after every wet spell and the ground round the posts stays soft for days.
• An overnight gust put two panels flat across the lawn while the rest of the run stood.
• Your insurer wants photographs and a written itemised quote before they will settle a storm claim.
• Timber fixed above a Cotswold stone boundary wall has rotted at the coping while the stonework is sound.
• The fence has been patched by three different people since you moved in and you want an honest read on repairing versus replacing.

What the job includes

• A post-by-post walk of the run before we price it, each post push-tested at the ground line, so you get told which have failed and which have a few years left.
• Both numbers when the call is close. If the repair comes to more than about half of replacing that section, we quote the replacement alongside it and say which we would pick.
• Old concrete footings broken out and carted away, itemised on the quote rather than added on the day.
• Replacement posts in Use Class 4 timber or concrete, set in a full 20kg bag of Postcrete, with a gravel board where the panel bottom meets damp ground.
• End-grain preservative brushed into every cut, notch and drilled hole on site, because cutting treated timber after the factory breaks the treatment envelope.
• Photographs of the damage before and after, and a written itemised quote by email, which is the evidence insurers ask for on a storm claim.

Planning and the rules that apply

Repairs sit inside the same permitted development class as new fencing: Class A, Part 2, Schedule 2 of the GPDO 2015 covers the erection, construction, maintenance, improvement or alteration of a gate, fence, wall or other means of enclosure, so putting a boundary right at 2 metres or under, or 1 metre or under where it is adjacent to a highway used by vehicular traffic, needs no planning permission, provided those rights have not been removed by an Article 4 direction or a condition on the original estate permission. An existing taller fence can be maintained at its former height under A.1(c), though the Order does not settle whether a full tear-out and rebuild counts as maintenance or as fresh erection, so a Lawful Development Certificate from the local planning authority, Cheltenham Borough Council in the town itself, is the way to be certain. Two things bite locally: Class A is switched off at any height within the curtilage of a listed building or on a fence forming a boundary with one, and inside a Cheltenham conservation area taking down an existing wall or fence of 2 metres or more, or 1 metre or more next to a highway, waterway or open space, can need permission for relevant demolition even where the replacement is permitted.