Can a neighbour legally raise the height of their garden ground substantially?

[BentFork]

Asking for a friend. Both gardens are small. The neighbour had a gentle slope uphill from his house to the back fence. But he has levelled approx 16ft of ground near the house for an extension and piled this removed soil at the end of his garden, held in place by a new brick retaining wall (with steps up to it). The result is that where previously, you wouldn't see each other over the 6ft fence, now the neighbours look chest & head over the fence! My friend is hating the loss of privacy and being overlooked. There is no soil touching the fence as the new retaining wall runs alongside it. The neighbour's extension has full planning permission. There's nothing that can be done now as the building work is almost finished. I know there're rules around decking height, but it appears it doesn't matter if you move soil around. Anyone else had experience of something like this?

We have bamboo in pots, it’s the run away variety and has never escaped their pots, no idea what the poster is on about.

I don’t need to read up on bamboo , we have had a bamboo screen ( running ) for years with no problems. Thin it out every couple of years and a good dig around it every year to remove any creeping roots and thats it. The canes grow really fast but the roots grow slow. Its a lot less maintenance than other plants in the garden ( hedges ).

Lazy owners are the problem with it ,not the plant itself.

It makes a fantastic screen op and is perfect for blocking over looked gardens.
ours reaches about 15 foot.

It's horrible! Who on earth wants to look at that?

I do 🙂

I feel sorry for your neighbours.

Pure luck.

Ours was double potted by professional gardeners and installed 14 months before we bought the house. By the time we were here, it’d escaped the pots, grown 104ft down the garden and infested the neighbours on either side. It was an absolute mission to get rid of it all, and really expensive.

Our surveyor said it’ll be considered the same as Japenese Knotweed soon in terms of damage and evasiveness.

We had clumping bamboo, too, and it would have been a lot worse with non-clumping!

Maybe the soil and outlook affect bamboo. It’s a nightmare here too. We dug ours out successfully, but also have to continue digging out the neighbours’ bamboo behind our garage. It’s determined to take over and can’t be trusted to stay where it’s put.

I’m worried about a lovely new estate over the road- the neighbouring bamboo from our estate will potentially try to come up in their tarmac. It’s kept in check on our side by regular mowing.

Likewise. We have had it in troughs in our garden for years. I'd highly recommend it as a screening plant.

Bamboo is awful.
I would be careful reporting- purely as they’ll know who it was, dispute, etc etc.

I’d buy a few trees, or add trellis to the fence. Or move earth myself and grow trees. It won’t take long.

In what way ? Its never grown over the boundary, and i would never let it ,like i said before the plant is not the issue its lazy owners who fail to maintain it and let it spread. It does the job of screening houses that are higher than ours and the neighbours have no problem with it.

Not pure luck , just good garden maintenance.

And how do people say it’s escaped pots ? Do you water it with your eyes closed and not see it ?

we have quite a few bamboo’s in pots/ planters too never had any of them escape. They tend to outgrow the pots and die if you don’t split them and give them space to grow.