New neighbour has put a gate in back fence

[PToosher]

Houses on our side of our street back onto a park. A new neighbour moved in a year or so ago and had a lot of building work done that took up a lot of their garden, so they now have very little garden for their several children to play in.

While walking my dog through the park recently I noticed that the bushes and undergrowth in the park to the rear of their garden have been cut back hard and there is a brand new gate through the 6 foot fence from their back garden into the park. At the weekend I noticed the family had a gazebo set up in the park, the gate was open and they were apparently treating it as an extension of their garden.

Having previously had a problem when we sold a house that had a long established access gate into the car park of an adjacent pub, I'm wondering if you can just do this?
Because I don't think you can and I'm pretty sure if we all did it there would be some comeback from the council.

Sounds lovely! The only legal issue is the cutting of the bushes if not on their land.
legally you don’t have to have a fence on your boundary so they can take it down if they want.
Do the same, seriously!

The answer is... it depends.

You can let the land owner know, if you wish to. Ultimately it is for them to enforce their boundaries and access over their land.

Unless it is in the deeds that you have a right of access, you have no legal right of access. This is my understanding too.

Lots have done this near us. I don't see an issue personally.

Why does a back gate bother you ?

It doesn't 'bother' me.
I enquired as I don't believe there is right of access, regardless of whether there is a fence and gate there or not.
If there's no issue, I'd happily put a gate in my back fence and save 10 minutes on the walk to the train station.

The council here would have a big problem with anyone cutting plants back
They won't touch anything that not causing a nuisance

I believe you are correct.

Whether the landowner will enforce is a different question.

Wouldn't security be an issue? They are deliberately making their property more accessible to intruders.

Because she didn't think of it first 😂😂

Very normal, I'm surprised lots of people haven't done it.

Chopping down the council shrubbery is more likely a problem than the gate itself

There are several parks like this where I live and people who want a gate pay a nominal feel to our local council each year for access rights.

If it doesn’t bother you and you want one as well then put it in and hope some nosey neighbour doesn’t report you both . I live near a village green / local small heath and lots of the people who actually adjoin it have put gates in , nobody cares .

We have this. All the gardens have gates though, probably since the houses were built. Some keep the bushes pruned around them, some are overgrown.

I use my back gate more than my front door as it's far nicer to walk through the park to school. We did have issues with a couple of young boys peering over our gate looking for balls (not their own!) so I've let the bushes grow over now and you can't even tell there's a gate there now. It does mean we have to crawl out a small hole though and once we couldn't find the gate at all 🙈 We call it Narnia 😂

I think it’s a tad cheeky!

How lovely that the children will be able to go to the park safely without going round by the road!

To be honest, I asked here because, as I said in a previous comment, I can see the advantage.
But if I were to do it I'd ask the council first. However if they refuse me right of access and I point to the neighbours as precedent, I can see it leading to ill will in one way or another.

It depends on the deeds. We have one boundary that states we must maintain a chain link fence or similar.

If they'd put a gate in the fence between your garden and theirs you might have a right to complain. That's what I thought you meant at first. But why does it bother you? It doesn't affect you, surely?

If they cut back bushes belonging to the park side of the fence, then that's an issue.

Just as an added bit of info - the border in the park to the rear of the gardens isn't a couple of bushes. It's 12-15 feet of thick bushes and trees.

One evening several years ago I was walking the dog in the park and he disturbed a couple of men that were amongst the trees in there, they hurried away and my dog came out of the shrubbery with a used condom in his mouth.

Just do it if you want to and hope no busy cunt reports you.

I did this exact thing, but onto a farmer's field with a popular right of way for walkers. It was great for family parties and the farmer was pleased because I could check on his lambs. I didn't cut any plants back though. Quite frankly if you back onto a public area, putting in a gate is a huge bonus. The neighbours then did the same, but one had to put in a kind of hatch that they crawled through because they had water behind most of their fence (hard to explain). The gate was just as secure as the fence so no worries there.

The council will potentially have an issue with them.cutting the plants down. In my area the council enforces their boundaries as they may want to change use of land in future.