Where would you put fence / gating (if any)?

[tanneja]

Hi all,

 

When we bought the house it had a 1m tall, approx. 3m wide farmyard style hinged wood gate bordering the driveway and public footpath.  It was monstrously heavy, and eventually rotted.  At the moment we have nothing and recently had items stolen from our front door area.  While going through the process of renovating / extending, we are wondering about fencing/gating to make it difficult for unauthorised persons to get close to windows or doors of the house.

 

We obviously need to provision for the postman, so were thinking an externally mounted postbox, plus a doorbell (perhaps a CCTV version).  Our options seem to be to reinstate something at the public footpath boundary, or set it back to the house main elevation (approx. 8m).  I am leaning towards the setback version thinking;

 

1)      it might meet with less local opposition (although he have had plenty so far with the build, so maybe that is unavoidable),

2)      perhaps with it being setback it could be taller than 1m (ideally 1.8m to be less scalable)

3)      guests cars could get onto and park on the front of the driveway immediately without needing to notify us,

4)      we ourselves could get onto the driveway (off the road) in our vehicle, then trigger the carport door for access, rather than trigger on our approach, and

5)      the bin men can get to the bins on the driveway without me putting them out the front on bin day.

 

Our thought is to use a fencing style gate for pedestrian access, and perhaps powered hinged front gates to the carport (with other three sides of the carport open).  The carport itself doesn’t have planning permission, we are hopeful due to its position that we can have it under permitted development (FYI we calculate that with the carport, 40% of the property land would have buildings / covered areas, under the 50% threshold I seem to read about).

 

For what it is worth, the area is nearly all open driveways, little to no gating.  There was a case a couple of years ago where a neighbour built 2m high metal gates on their boundary with the footpath, they were denied retrospective planning permission.  We are sympathetic to matching the vibe of the area, but we do want more security.  Also know we plan CCTV, alarm and external lighting as additional deterrents.  You would have to be unlucky to be targeted by violent crime, but given we may go from the worst to the best looking property through this refurb, I still want any would-be criminal to think our house is too much hassle to try it on, and prevent them wandering up the drive, checking on occupancy, testing windows, and the rest.

 

After all of that, what would you do?

 

Many thanks

JT

[ToughButterCup]

Hi, welcome. 

I am sorry to read your story, especially as it's your first post.  We have experienced theft from our house too.  Its horrible.  But at least there was no violence against us. 

 

Our son is a local copper,  his partner a CSI. You can imagine the detailed stories we hear. And the levels of detailed advice we get too. You appear to me to have a very sensible,  logical approach to your security requirements.  

 

Beyond what you already plan, the key thing is constant vigilance.  To help me work on that, I try to spend a few minutes each week  making a  thief's job just a little bit harder. 

 

Take looking in your windows.  Plant a really thorny bush in a place that makes it painful to do that? 

Your shed (for example)  Any loose tools? Secure them.

Walk the burglars walk. Think ... what makes his job easier. How easy is it to smash that security light?

Gravel on the driveway?  Noisy gravel,  or so compacted you can't hear anyone approaching ?

 

While each one of those suggestions is minor, acting on many such smaller items adds up. You will be able to think of many more simple cheap  things you can do  to protect your property.

 

The biggest threat is complacency.  

 

[tanneja]

Thanks AnonymousBosch.

 

Yes I plan to make small inconveniences to deter people.  Regarding a gate of some kind, do you have one?  On balance, do you think they are effective for security, or too expensive and garish relative to the protection they afford?

 

This is the kind of style I was thinking, a gate next to doors (imagine the large gate span was two leafs that hinged, and the small gate was a pedestrian access).  The taller the better for security I suppose, if on the boundary with the footpath I'm sure 1m would be the tallest you could go, but I wonder if taller would be reasonable if in the set back front of carport position, behind the principal elevation of the house.

 

Last night, 2am, we had someone parked over our drive (not a single other car in the street, there is far more curb area than driveways along the road, yet elected for precisely over / blocking our drive), seemingly eating in their car, even left their trash on the floor.  A gate anywhere won't help with that, but when I was thinking about what to do such as confront them, I was paranoid thinking another one could already be out of the bar and in a hidden area on my property, could come at me from behind.  Feels like a sealed off property (or as best as you can) would make that kind of scenario easier to deal with?  I turned lights on, ended up going out the house which made them move on, but got my adrenaline up at 2am, didn't sleep much after that.

Edited May 19, 2020 by tanneja

[Ferdinand]

It all looks rather expensive.

 

If you replaced your farm gate with a metal farm gate .. say 6 bar ... it would cost about £100, and be surveilled from the road.

 

Is it worth doing that this to see if it s good enough before you lay out oodles?

[tanneja]

Thanks Ferdinand.

 

I suppose trying to focus my question, would you or others think a gate would best serve us at the land boundary with the footpath, or set back to the principal elevation?  Either way we can use a cheap gate approach, obviously less cost at the boundary given the small span to cover, however I had my list of reasons why I thought set back might be ideal.

 

Thanks again for your time and any additional advice.

JT

[Ferdinand]

7 hours ago, tanneja said:

Thanks Ferdinand.

 

I suppose trying to focus my question, would you or others think a gate would best serve us at the land boundary with the footpath, or set back to the principal elevation?  Either way we can use a cheap gate approach, obviously less cost at the boundary given the small span to cover, however I had my list of reasons why I thought set back might be ideal.

 

Thanks again for your time and any additional advice.

JT

 

Tricky question.

 

I think other relevant questions are how secure is your hedge? (Can somebody push through it easily to avoid going through the gate, in which case there may not be too much point).

And how much does the hedge down the side of the drive stop you spotting anything going on in the parking area? 

 

I live on an old lane into town which is a cut through for bikes, walkers, and also cars / vans, which means that my front is surveilled a little. I have essentially no gate, and 5'6" high stone walls. I think I had a spade nicked when I left it out, but things like building materials waiting to be used have not vanished. I have no gate (but a power supply) because the bloke doing the conversion ran out of "getting his money back" when he would come to sell it.

 

I am really in two minds in my situation.

 

I have two neighbours with powered tall wooden gates, intercoms and external post boxes etc, and they are not sure of the benefit - it keeps people out of the front, but also is a bit of a flag as to when people are in or out, as they rest open when at home.

 

In yours if I put a big enclosing gate on it I would look at that dividing hedge, as I can see "garden" uses for the paved area - kids paying ball, BBQ etc. Do you need it for a garden (my front faces South - so I entertain outside there). I would also want to consider things like whether visitors can park on the street, how busy the road is (will it be an advantage to pull off the road first, or can you sit in the car for 30s while your blipper opens the gate?), will it reduce interaction with neighbours or is there a walking gate etc.

 

Hope a bit of that is useful.

 

F

[tanneja]

Thanks Ferdinand.  Interesting to hear about your neighbours.  Have they shared with your their reason for not closing the gates when home as well?  In their same position I feel I would have them closed all the time.

 

For the avoidance of any doubt the main entrance is the labelled porch area, its set far back by the garage.  The hedging is mature leylandi, no chance of anyone getting through those. The front lawn area is an additional garden bit, which threatens to be a forgotten wasteland with the set back version of gates.  I like your thinking of potential BBQs and such out the front, but we do still have a nice back garden too.  I'm not sure how comfortable I will be with the kids being out the front with just a 1m fence / gate, the front lawn area is likely to be either a food growing garden or a rose garden for nice views from the snug.  The (not yet planted) hedging row that divides the lawn from the drive area is to keep people away from the windows.

 

My wife has been crashed into once while coming onto our drive, it is a busy road, so given she does multiple child drop offs and pickups, for her sanity it would be ideal if she didn't have to wait on the busy road for a gate to open, the incremental stress could build up over time.  Doesn't mean we are convinced the set back is the right thing, there may be another solution.  We do really want the car port, best thing for keeping a car in a nice usable condition irrespective of the weather.

 

[Ferdinand]

This is another arrangement. This is a setback I have on a rental. The road here is the old A38 with lots of traffic - could be 5-10k per day. That's only about 13-14ft long, so my new estate sticks out.

 

At the time it was to let the T pull off and open the gate afterwards, and for ease with visitors so callers for the home business did not need to pull in.

 

 

I think the only reason I can see for doing the big gate now (if you are unsure) would be to protect materials or privacy.

 

I would probably just say not to make a premature decision that might be wrong, unless it is cheap or can be reused (eg front gate now and carport gate later) ? .

 

F

Edited May 20, 2020 by Ferdinand