Help! Neighbours fence changes detrimental to us

[Someshire768]

Hi 👋 Hopefully someone can advise...
Our driveway runs alongside our next door neighbours garden with most of its length (about 5/6) running alongside the back garden and the front section of our drive (roughly 1/6 of the length) running alongside their front garden. Our driveway and their back garden is seperated by a wooden fence. The front section has no fence or wall and the garden is comprised of a bed with very low shrubs. The lack of wall on the front part of our drive ensures that we can see the road ahead when pulling out.
Our neighbour intends to have the fences reinstalled so that the front garden is fenced in to become part of the back garden, meaning there would be fence the entire length of our driveway. This will make it very difficult and dangerous for us pulling off the drive- we would be pulling out blind on one side. I'm opposed to them doing this.
Do I have any rights to ask them not to do this as it would make our driveway unsafe?
The road is narrow with just enough width for 2 cars and our driveway is especially narrow too- so no room to swan-neck when manouvring to increase visibility when emerging. On top of this practical issue it would certainly reduce the aesthetic appeal for all neighbours surrounding with the outlook of a dull wooden fence right upto the pavement and no greenery but this is probably technically irrelevant.
See my terrible arial view drawing below for illustration. We are number 2 they are number 1.
We have not yet expressed our concerns/objection and work has not yet begun but we want to get our facts straight before we respond. Polite friendly relationship. No previous issues and they seem like a nice family. We dont know them well as we are quite reserved and tend to keep to ourselves.

I'm not sure if this would make the project seem worthwhile due to reduced privacy and security. I can see that it would improve the issue of visibility. I don't know if they would be able to erect a shed in that space which exceeded the height of the fence. I have reason to suspect this could be on the cards. Hopefully theres a restriction about structures which exceed 1m close to roads to match restrictions on fences as is effectively the same.

Apologies if I've missed something but can't you reverse in? Pet peeve of mine people reversing into traffic.

As others have said, the maximum height that a fence, wall or gate can be is 1 metre if it is adjacent to a highway. There is a lot of case law around what “adjacent” means in this context, but “near to” is generally accepted.

If they do it anyway you can report it to your planning enforcement team and they will take a view on whether or not it’s expedient to enforce (it’s discretionary not compulsory). Our planning enforcement team regularly enforce against things like this.

If it is as it appears in your diagram then it’ll be a breach of planning. That doesn’t mean they can’t do it, it just means they need to apply for planning permission (at which time you will be invited to comment/object).

I reverse park (I prefer it actually) everyday anyway but I'd be out on the road before knowing it was clear if they went ahead. Its all very tight- narrow road, narrow pavement, narrow driveway (so coming out pretty straight before turning right crossing pavement and traffic)

Hopefully they will see the risk and choose not to go ahead. We don't want to fall out with them as they've always been decent neighbours. I just don't want someone to smack into me as I pull out blind and I certainly don't want to hit any pedestrians or cyclists!

Just had to laugh at this... they said "peep and creep" not beep and creep

There’s a similar situation in a house opposite ours - this was their solution.

Good luck. My guess is they’ve not even realised the impact it would have.
We’ve got an issue with cars parking outside ours and pulling out onto our exceptionally fast road sometimes is not much fun.

Planning Permission - Fences, gates and garden walls - Planning Portal

These are the official regs (I'm in property law). Are you in a conservation area or is there an active Article 4 direction?

Have you spoken to the neighbour about their plans? It may be best to have a friendly discussion about what they intend to do first.
I work for our local authority and used to be in Highways.
What most are saying is true. You can not have a 2m high fence running right up to the public highway.
You can have it at 1m, and that has to be 2m or something like that back from the highway for this very reason.
Speak to them about this, or ask your local highways/planning dept. They may have something on their own website about it already.
Hope to God they don't put hedging in, as this doesn't seem to have the same restrictions from what I can see! 😬
Good luck.

Have you tried talking to them?

"Can you make it lower at the front for safety please?"

@Someshire768 did they go ahead in the end?