Appeal 6004325

The appeal is dismissed.

An application for costs was made by [name] against Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, and this is the subject of a separate Decision.

The main issue in this appeal is the effect of the proposed fence and gates on the character and appearance of the street scene and the area.

The appeal site comprises a semi-detached house within a residential area, which appears to have been built during the 1960’s. Most properties in the street have low front and side boundaries, often dwarf walls of light coloured artificial stone or red brick, reflecting the materials used in the front elevations of the dwellings and giving some consistency to the character of the area. Many of the front gardens have planting behind their front boundary. These boundaries contribute positively to the openness and greenery of the area and its suburban character.

A previous application (ref RB2024/0767) was refused for a new front and side boundary that has already been erected. The Council has said that an enforcement notice is in force, but the fencing and gates were not removed within the relevant time period and remain in place today. The current proposal would involve the removal of the existing low stone wall, thereby reducing the height of the grey composite fencing to 1.5m, with the twin gates of the same material reduced to the same height along the front boundary and 2m high fencing along the side boundary. The spikes installed on top of the fence and gates would be retained.

The existing boundary is seen clearly in the approach along the street from both directions and is in stark contrast to the surrounding boundaries. That would remain the case even with the reduced height that is proposed which would remain significantly higher than most of the surrounding front boundaries and would result in a jarring appearance in the street scene.

Furthermore, the solidity and proposed height of the boundary would still have a severely enclosing and overly dominant effect. Although the views into the site would be slightly greater than at present, those views would remain limited by the height and solidity of the boundary as would intervisibility with neighbouring front gardens and this would severely harm the openness of the street scene.

This would be compounded by the dark grey colour, black edging and spikes of the proposed design, all of which are seen in the existing boundary and result in an uncompromisingly urban style that brings to mind security fencing around an industrial site. As such, those are highly inappropriate for this domestic location and would not reflect the design or materials of the other boundaries seen most commonly in the area.

The appellant considers that the proposal would be an improvement on the existing boundary. Although there would be some improvement in terms of the overall height, that would be insufficient given that a significant contrast in height with other front boundaries would remain and that the other aspects of the proposal in regard to its design and materials remain unchanged. In any case, the existing boundary does not provide justification for this proposal because it is unauthorised.

I conclude then that the proposal, by reason of its height, design and materials, would result in significant harm to the character and appearance of the street scene and the area. As such, it would be contrary to development plan policies CS28 and SP55 in the Rotherham Local Plan Core Strategy 2013-2028 which together seek to ensure that proposals are responsive to their context and visually attractive, taking into account factors such as height, detail and materials.

For the reasons given above, I conclude that the proposed development would be contrary to the development plan and there are no material considerations that would outweigh that. The appeal should be dismissed.