I live on a brad new estate and our houses are built in a cirle and all our back garden face on to one another.

Just came home from work and went into the garde and the naeighbour straight over the back has erected a 16ft huge kids play area against my fence (well approx and inch off it) It a huge eye saw!  Plus I now have some screaming kids hanging out of a window of this thing watching our every move in the garden!! and causing the dogs to go mad barking

My question is although this is probley not a fixed peice of equipment, I am wondering if there is any laws or rules about this, especially being well over the height of our 6 foot fence?

I dont bregrudge the kids an area to play however I dont appreciate looking at this eyesore everytime i look out of the window and the kids hanging over the thing causeing the dogs to bark!...plus my next door neighbour just complained about the dogs barking alll day!

I am almost positive that they need planning permission over a certain height which I am pretty sure is below 16'.(one of my customers measured the height of a toy area in the neighbours garden in the middle of the night, but it was 2" below the required height, and I am sure that was below 16'
First thing monday morning I would ring the planning department of your local council and find out what they say.
HTH
Lea :)

If your neighbour is complaining about the dogs barking I would take that as an opening to calmly tell him why they are barking and ask politely whether he can move the structure to another part of his garden.  I wouldn't go into the fact that it towers over your fence, which I can imagine is pretty annoying!

I don't know if there are any rules governing this but if you can't solve this amicably, it might be worth contacting your local council or citizens advice to see if there is anything that will apply.  Best to try very hard to work it out between you though I think as you still have to live close to each other.

Good luck :)

Very sensible advice Annie. Domestics between neighbours can cause all sorts of long term problems. :(

See CAB, find out the best plan of action and the legalities of it all, so you know where you stand legally if the worst happens. Then have a quiet chat with this neighbour, see if you can reach an agreement. Can see both sides here, at the end of the day the kids have a right to play in their garden with their friends, thats part of having to live with neighbours, that and the barbies :) and these climbing things are such good fun for kids. The kids will play and make noise regardless of the structure though, so I guess somehow the dogs will have to get used to the noise. I take your point of how annoying it is having something 'looming' over your space, with kids grinning at you etc, and making the dogs bark. You lose your privacy. A difficult situation, but with care maybe it can be sorted to a mutual agreement that doesnt cause any furthur problems. :)

What about growing some fast, tall growing conifers right next to the fence?

Actually I think there are rules about height of those now so probably wouldn't be allowed to grow them tall enough to hide this contraption.

Height Restrictions scroll down to the bit about height restrictions. Basically you might need planning permission for a stucture that is over 3 metres tall or 4 metres if it has a rigid roof. HTH

Or a Gazebo will give you some privacy.

My husband and I live in a small village in the countryside. We have 3 dogs. Our neighbours have 4 dogs and 7 dogs respectively.  We have recently had to seek planning permission for the kennel we brought with us to the house when we moved there.  Whilst going through the planning application a number of objections were received from our neighbours in relation to the fact that they are experiencing loss of amenity due to the noise created by our dogs during the day when they are in the kennel. 
We have had a series of works carried out on our property and we often ask the builders how the dogs were whilst they were on site. They say that when they arrive the dogs bark for approx 10 minutes and then settle down. Play amongst themselves, sleep etc...  Whereas our neighbours state that they bark for hours and hours.  Anyway our planning permission has been granted and the neighbours are not happy. I overheard a conversation where the neighbour with 7 dogs stated that they believed our dogs had a problem and that she often comes into our garden to calm them down - (that would just make matters worse in my view)  The dogs are left around 5/6 hours per day. Our neighbour with the 7 dogs has made complaints to environmental health.  The first complaint they could not substantiate the council to investigate now they have a second complaint in.  Advice appreciated.:rolleyes

Firstly I would get a padlock on your gate and make sure nobody can get into your back garden, or wherever the kennel is! Having a stranger coming onto their property isn't likely to calm any dog down and I'd hate the idea of people interfering with my dogs when I wasn't there.

Secondly you could leave a tape recorder running to tape your dogs yourself to see how much noise they make. You're paying your builders so they may just say what they think you want to hear, best to find out for yourself.

If it turns out the dogs are really noisy then I'd say they're obviously not happy being left outside alone for so long and maybe look towards hiring someone reliable to come in and play with them/sit with them for an hour or so in the middle of your time away. Or even make sure you leave them lots of things that will entertain them like filled kongs etc.

If it turns out they are quiet, then no problem, tell your neighbour you have proof they are not too noisy and ask politely they leave thme alone.

Thank you for the advice. The annoying thing is that our neighbours dogs bark quite alot and one of the dogs has epilepsy and barks incessantly until it is told to be quiet by its owner.  But we accept the barking due to the fact we have dogs and we live in an area where there are a number of dogs.  We have lived in the house for 18 months and only started planning application in January and therefore some months had passed without the neighbours saying anything to us or the council. But to say our dogs have something wrong with them is awful and worst of which this is a comment from a fellow dog owner. 
I am going to buy a tape recorder tonight and conduct test runs over the weekend to see what noise the dogs make.  I shall also look at getting a dog walker or perhaps putting them into a local kennels during the day - at the moment we cannot use the kennels until they have been cladded (we live in a conservation area) and so they are at the local kennels at the moment during the day. The funny thing is that the diary in which are neighbour has been keeping in relation to the dogs - some of the dates she has provided are the days in which the dogs were in the local kennels - so they are effectively making some and maybe all of the incidents up just to cause an issue. 

Well get details from the kennels of those dates that way the council will know they are lying!

Hope things start improving soon!

some of the dates she has provided are the days in which the dogs were in the local kennels - so they are effectively making some and maybe all of the incidents up just to cause an issue. 

I think those of us who have had problems in the past will say "yep, that's happened to me too" :D
Once people get stuck in to something like perceived/alleged noise problems, you tend to get lots of "wrong dates" IME.

Lindsay
x

The first complaint they could not substantiate the council to investigate now they have a second complaint in.  Advice appreciated.:rolleyes:

Really the best thing is to just try to ignore the neighbours (unless they are approachable enough to speak to) and just go along as usual, and above all be happy if the council decide to install listening equipment as that way you will be proved right. (Our council says they will only do it once every 6 months, not sure if that is true of everywere, but at least it gives you a bit of peace for the months in between.) Our neighbours have complained 8 times in the past 4 years, they have not been proved right even once, and they lied through their teeth as well.