Garden gates and driveway gates in Cheltenham

This is for you if

• Your side gate drags on the path and you have to lift it before the latch will catch.
• One of the double gates on the drive has dropped so far you only ever open the other one, and the post it hangs on rocks when you push it.
• There is no gate down the side of the house, so the bins and the bikes live at the front and anyone can walk straight through to the back garden.
• You need a gate cut into a run of closeboard you already have, matched board for board so it does not stand out.
• You have Cotswold stone piers either side of the opening and want a gate hung off them without cracking the stonework.
• You want to close off an open-plan driveway on an estate at Bishops Cleeve or Up Hatherley and have no idea what height you are allowed, or whether the estate rules stop you.

What the job includes

• Gate posts a size up from the fence posts either side, 100 x 100mm minimum on a side gate and heavier again on a driveway pair, set in Postcrete at 600mm as our normal depth and deeper for a wide or heavy leaf.
• Hinges sized to the weight of the leaf, a latch or lock to suit the opening, and on double gates a drop bolt into a ground socket plus a stop so the leaves cannot swing through.
• Every site cut, hinge mortice and bolt hole sealed with end-grain preservative before the post goes in, because cutting treated timber opens the treatment envelope at the wettest point.
• Gates built or specified to match the run they sit in: same board width, same feather-edge lap direction, same rail count, same finish.
• A sight-line check before any post goes in where the gate opens onto a bend, a junction or the footway, because the highway authority can require a wall or fence at those spots to be altered whatever the planning position.
• The old gate, posts and concrete footings broken out and taken away, priced as its own line in the quote rather than added after the job.

Planning and the rules that apply

Gates are permitted development under Class A, Part 2, Schedule 2 of the GPDO 2015, subject to two height caps: 1 metre where the gate is adjacent to a highway used by vehicular traffic, including that highway's footway, and 2 metres anywhere else, which is why a driveway gate onto the road is the one that needs thought. Class A is switched off within the curtilage of a listed building, or where the gate forms a boundary with a neighbouring listed building, at any height, and those rights can also be removed by an Article 4 direction or by a condition on an estate's original planning permission. Section 79 of the Highways Act 1980 is a separate power that lets the highway authority require a wall or fence at a corner, bend or junction to be altered where it obstructs the view of road users, so treat national guidance as a starting point, check with Cheltenham Borough Council, and apply for a lawful development certificate where the position is not clear.