My front wall is a boundary to a public road & footpath. Its a low wall ( about 3.5 feet)
The front wall is pretty crappy (rough flaking old plaster over rubble), although it is staright and square. Done work on the house recently and had it (the house) partially stone faced. Chatting with the stone mason , decided it would be good to also put a facing of stone on the front boundary wall to tidy it up.
As the wall continues either side of me all the houses are mature one offs that are there quite a while ( before the footpath was addded a couple of years ago)
On one side of me the original ditch wall (earth and stone) serves as a boundary for a neighbour, its very uneven meaning the footpath width Varies quite a bit, Its similar up and down the road from me, some houses with newer straight walls some with the old ditch.
The footpath varies in width from typically 4 feet where a proper boundary wall exists, down to 3 and even 2 feet in spots where the old ditch exists.
The footpath outside my house is about 4 feet wide, If I were to add the stone facing to my old wall it would extend over the footpath 6-8 inches, The footpath would still be wider than outside my neigbours on one side and still much wider than other spots looking up and down the road.
The Council say, "no dice", I can't extend over the footpath. I understand they are within their rights to say no, however I feel in my defence I would:
Question: Am I expecting too much from the Council to allow me to do this improvement?, They say ( the local Engineer), I can knock my complete boundary wall and move it all back 6 inches. I feel I am offering an improvment and they are doing zero to help me.
Knocking and rebuilding the wall adds significantly to the cost (complicated by a gas meter on the inside of the old wall), making me now think maybe its not worth it.
Cheers
The front wall is pretty crappy (rough flaking old plaster over rubble), although it is staright and square. Done work on the house recently and had it (the house) partially stone faced. Chatting with the stone mason , decided it would be good to also put a facing of stone on the front boundary wall to tidy it up.
As the wall continues either side of me all the houses are mature one offs that are there quite a while ( before the footpath was addded a couple of years ago)
On one side of me the original ditch wall (earth and stone) serves as a boundary for a neighbour, its very uneven meaning the footpath width Varies quite a bit, Its similar up and down the road from me, some houses with newer straight walls some with the old ditch.
The footpath varies in width from typically 4 feet where a proper boundary wall exists, down to 3 and even 2 feet in spots where the old ditch exists.
The footpath outside my house is about 4 feet wide, If I were to add the stone facing to my old wall it would extend over the footpath 6-8 inches, The footpath would still be wider than outside my neigbours on one side and still much wider than other spots looking up and down the road.
The Council say, "no dice", I can't extend over the footpath. I understand they are within their rights to say no, however I feel in my defence I would:
- be improving the road frontage, and the footpath would also be wider than at my neighbours on one side,
- The old uneven ditch wall does still partially extend (about a metre) in front of my property causing the footpath to narrow to 3 feet, I am proposing to remove this and replace with a proper wall adjoining my existing wall, so for one metre at least I would be widening the footpath.
- The old stone ditch is also prone to crumbling in wet weather causing large stones to fall onto the footpath and road, so I am also helping by removing this danger.
- About one third of my frontage is taken up by a vechicle entrance which is well set back and angled into my property, so no affect on the footpath here ( This work was also done by me many years ago removing another section of ditch)
Question: Am I expecting too much from the Council to allow me to do this improvement?, They say ( the local Engineer), I can knock my complete boundary wall and move it all back 6 inches. I feel I am offering an improvment and they are doing zero to help me.
Knocking and rebuilding the wall adds significantly to the cost (complicated by a gas meter on the inside of the old wall), making me now think maybe its not worth it.
Cheers