A Welsh family has been told to take down a wooden fence that separates their front garden from a main road after their application to keep it was rejected.
Sophie Daly asked for permission to retain the 1.98m fence and a garden gate she said improved “enhancing safety and security” for her child and the family’s large dog. She maintained that it offered better protection from noise and pollution caused by the busy A48 near her home in Chepstow, compared to the hedge it replaced. The fence was put up between February and April this year, with Ms Daly submitting a retrospective application in August. Her application also proposed providing a bird box and a “bug hotel” in the front garden. Her application was supported by Paul Pavia, the Conservative councillor for the town’s Mount Pleasant ward, and Chepstow Town Council.
The only neighbour who responded to Monmouthshire County Council’s planning department said “they enjoy seeing the new well-kept addition” and called the fence “modern but respectable”.
However, council planners said the “prominent location” at an entrance to the town meant the gate and fence “cause unacceptable harm to the visual amenity and open character of the area”.
The committee was also advised to reject the application due to insufficient “appropriate ecological mitigation or compensation” for the removed hedge.
They recommended refusal, with planning officer Philip Thomas saying the property is situated at a “visually prominent entrance to Chepstow”.
The planning committee members agreed and rejected the application. Just three councillors opposed the refusal recommendation and one abstained.
Neither the council’s highways department nor the Welsh Government, which oversees the A48, had objected.
Councillor Pavia and argued that the fence offered “protection from one of Chepstow’s busiest roads”. He added: “It is very near the infamous Highbeech roundabout. It is not a rural lane but a noisy, polluted urban corridor.”
However, Rachel Buckler, a Conservative councillor for Devauden, said: “I do think it is detrimental and not in keeping and to my mind the hedge was better.”
Emma Bryn, an Independent member for Wyesham, claimed that approving the fence could “set a precedent” with “a really negative effect on the environment of Chepstow”.