Garden bonfire laws: how can we get our neighbours to stop having bonfires in their back garden?

Our neighbours keep having bonfires, at all times of the year. How can we get them to stop and will setting up a meeting help?
Merrily Harpur
Fiona McNulty17 March 2019

Question: Our neighbours keep burning garden waste very near to our property. This has been going on for the six or seven years we have lived here. We usually just close our windows and put up with it but recently these big, smoky bonfires are happening all the time, even on bank holidays and over Christmas.

When I’ve been round to complain I have seen huge piles of garden waste that can’t possibly have come from their small garden. One of the neighbours has a gardening business and I think they are burning waste from their customers’ gardens, too.

They have ignored all our requests to stop. What can we do?

Answer: It isn’t unlawful to have bonfires in the garden but they must not cause a nuisance.

Request a formal meeting with your neighbours, explain the issues their fires are causing and ask them to stop.

Suggest they dispose of rubbish at the local tip. If they are burning non-domestic rubbish, they could be running their garden maintenance business from home.

Look at their title deeds to see if there are restrictions prohibiting them using their property for business purposes.

If they fail to stop having regular bonfires you could apply to court for an injunction preventing them from doing so, and for damages.

You may have legal expenses insurance which could fund this.

The fires’ regularity could amount to a statutory nuisance. Report the situation to Environmental Health.

They will assess and if they find there to be a statutory nuisance, they could serve an abatement notice requiring the cessation or limiting of the fires.

If your neighbours ignored the notice they’d risk a criminal case and a fine.

These answers can only be a very brief commentary on the issues raised and should not be relied on as legal advice. No liability is accepted for such reliance. If you have similar issues, you should obtain advice from a solicitor.

If you have a question for Fiona McNulty, please email legalsolutions@standard.co.uk or write to Legal Solutions, Homes & Property, Evening Standard, 2 Derry Street, W8 5EE. Questions cannot be answered individually, but we will try to feature them here. Fiona McNulty is a solicitor specialising in residential property.