The 1-metre and 2-metre fence rules are the most misquoted rules in planning. Most people have a vague sense of them — but the exceptions and boundary conditions are where neighbours fall out, councils get called, and enforcement notices get issued.
A fence or wall up to 1 metre high adjoining a highway, or up to 2 metres anywhere else, does not need planning permission. Above those heights, it does.
Under Class A of Part 2 of the GPDO, you can erect or alter a gate, fence, wall, or other means of enclosure without planning permission provided the height does not exceed 1 metre where it adjoins a highway used by vehicles or the footway of such a highway, the height does not exceed 2 metres in any other case, the property is not listed, and no Article 4 Direction or planning condition removes this right.
The 1-metre limit applies to any highway used by vehicles — not just major roads. A quiet residential street counts. A shared private drive may count. Footways are included — so a fence beside a pavement must stay under 1 metre. Height is measured from ground level — on a slope, the height at the tallest point is what counts.
New-build estates frequently carry conditions requiring open-plan frontages with no front boundary treatments above a specified height. These conditions run with the land and apply to every subsequent owner. They appear in the planning history for the original estate development — not in standard property searches.
Adding a trellis or screen to an existing fence that takes the total height above the relevant limit requires planning permission in the same way as a fence of that height. In conservation areas, the permitted development right to erect fences and gates may be removed or restricted — particularly where open frontages are a character of the area.
Standard searches check the public register. We go further — querying live portals, blocked legacy systems, pre-merger authority databases, committee PDF archives, Land Registry title constraints, and comparable decisions across your postcode cluster. What we retrieve determines what you know before you build, buy, or appeal.