How We Secured Retrospective Planning Permission For Palisade Fencing in a Mixed Industrial-Residential Area

Boundary Treatments – Not the glamorous side of planning however, they are essential for homeowners, landowners, business owners for protecting their land.

If you're running a business in a mixed-use area where industrial and residential properties sit side by side, security is a real concern for business owners. Palisade fencing often seems like the obvious solution—it's robust, durable, and sends a clear message to potential intruders but there's the small matter of planning permission to consider.

Getting approval for palisade fencing in areas that blend industrial and residential use isn't always straightforward, but it's definitely achievable with the right approach.

Do You Actually Need Planning Permission?

Not every fence needs planning approval, but there are some clear triggers that mean you'll need to submit an application:

• Your fence is over 1 metre high and next to a road or footpath used by vehicles or,

• over 2 metres high anywhere else on your boundary.

Palisade fencing is typically 1.8m to 2.4m high, so you're often in planning territory from the start.

Why Mixed-Use Areas Are Trickier

Here's the challenge: your business genuinely needs security, but the residents don't want to feel like they're living next to a fortress. This is exactly what our clients were facing when they had secured an area of land without permission, and the local residents were not happy with the fencing that had been erected.

Key Factors That Led to Success of Our Clients Application

The key thing about mixed-use areas is that the planning authority will look more closely at your proposals. What is likely to be acceptable in the middle of an industrial estate might not be considered acceptable when there are residential dwellings adjacent to the site. There were a number of key factors which led to the success of our clients application.

1. Justifying the Need – through our planning statement, we were specific about why our client needed the fence which included trespass, vandalism and general anti social behaviour.

2. Residential Amenity – we robustly demonstrated through our planning statement that the proposed fencing was acceptable in this particular location and that the fencing did not result in any adverse impacts on residential amenity.

3. Siting, Scale and Design – we demonstrated that the siting, scale and design of the fence was appropriate for this particular mixed use location.

4. Highway Safety – we clearly demonstrated that the siting and height of the palisade fencing did not result in any highway safety impacts, with particular regard to visibility from the sites access.

5. Offering a Betterment – whilst not necessary, the client was prepared to introduce landscaping around the perimeter of the fencing to soften its appearance if the Local Planning Authority considered it necessary to secure a favourable permission – the introduction of soft landscaping was not necessary in this instance.

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If you are seeking to secure planning permission for a boundary treatment and do not know where to start, please feel free to get in touch. Rachael@ablplanning.co.uk