I suppose I shouldn't complain but...

When it is personal to you you are allowed to complain M0nica your much loved view will be blighted.
Yes, far worse things happening but you are allowed to feel upset.

My sympathies m0nica as I'm losing a large portion of a view of a beautiful wood obscured by new houses. It was what attracted me to the property 10 years ago and I'd feel like moving, but the woodland itself is a very short walk away and it's absolutely beautiful in all seasons. Far worse things happening in the world it's true, but it's a shame.

M0nica, I feel for you. We have lived in this house from new, this year will make it 50 years. I know it's on an estate, but we are right on the edge and for all that time we had fields across the road. Now we are slowly being nudged by new builds, all over. We are sad, but think, on the whole , we have been lucky for all that time. Hope you and your DH are feeling better.

I do sympathise - having a lovely view is something you get used to - I often look at ours, and the field between the view and us and wonder how long it will be before someone builds there. But we have been very blessed for a long time, and I guess people really do need homes at this time.

The same thing has happened to friends of ours in the Midlands M0nica and unfortunately HS2 will be passing near them.
We used to have a view of the river but then they built houses and we lost the view, but then again, people complained when our houses were built as it's where they used to go blackberrying.

Progress brings its downsides.

We are also threatened by HS2 passing near our village but it won't spoil our view as we don't really have one. It will make a lot of noise and mess whilst it is being built, though. I sympathise with you and your DH, MOnica. I can only say that you will eventually get used to the gantries and not notice them as much as you do now. Hey ho, England is changing so rapidly it is quite frightening.

Well, since the first shock we have been thinking. We think a conifer bed in front of a the fence we have between the flower garden and the veg garden, about two thirds of the way up the garden could hide the biggest most obtrusive gantry from the house. We think couple of 3-4 metre trees at the back and smaller ones with different coloured foliage in the front, will be nice to look at and not obstruct the view of all the trees we love so much.

Our knowledge of garden planning and plants is limited so we may need to get someone in to design a planting plan - and, to be honest, dig up all the existing shrubs and plant the trees. I doubt we could do that now, at least not in the time span necessary.

We will also plant a hedgerow right at the back, where, currently, some carefully planted and nurtured blackberries provide an occasional berry. No loss because all the local hedgerows are always awash with blackberries in the autumn.

We have a much admired view from the front of our house across fields to where the TransPennine Trail runs - a lovely walking, cycling and horse riding amenity. We can walk to it from the house. That, and other local walking opportunities, is one of the main reasons we bought it. The proposed route of HS2 would have meant the demise of the trail, two local farms, a hotel, numerous houses, and encroach on the grounds of a stately home. We would have then had a view of the trains and the infrastructure instead. The route has now been moved further East, so our view and amenity is safe, but it will now run through the village my best friend lives in and they are not at all impressed. My gut feeling is that it will never even get off the ground - at least, not this far up country - but people are immediately affected by the threat of it and house prices plummet.

It is happening everywhere, we have a holiday home in France, right in the country, pitch dark at night. 20 years ago the Hale-Bopp comet was visible in Europe for about six months.

In our garden in France the view of it was spectacular, we could see all its tails as it passed in all its glory. Look to that sector of the sky now and all we can see at night are the red warning lights on four wind turbines.

If I didn’t have a row of big house I would be able to watch the beautiful North Sea however I feel for you Monica as the outside is almost as important as the inside I hope you manage to make a screen of trees or hedges to blot out the worst.

What a shame M0nica hope you can sort out ( blot out) the eyesore with trees/shrubs.Yes, get a garden designer to help you plan and actually do the work, he /she will have good ideas.
Electrification on the railways is going on all over now I have noticed.As is house building on a massive scale.

There is an enormous amount of house building going on in areas near us.

Our view wasn`t really what most people would call a view, but we had a good view of Boston docks from here, saw a good few interesting boats come in. Then they built a large, ugly corrugated iron building, in BLUE, which took away our "view", but that has also been blocked from our sight by 2 new blocks of 3 storey houses.

We've lived in the last street in our town for over 30 years and are right next to a public park/playing field and open fields which have been brilliant for walking, especially with our dogs. Now 676 houses are to be built on the part of the park/playing field and open fields which are classified as green belt. The lane that runs along the side of the fields will become a bus route and the number of houses trigger a new primary school and a row of shops.

There's a campaign, but the owners of the fields offered the land to the council and they live on the other side of the road where they developed the farm land as fishing ponds. They also knocked down the old farm house and built a large house with part of it as business premises for the fishing ponds. The rumour is they offered the land in return for protection of the green belt side of the road where they are (and the money of course).

When we heard we were shocked at the number of houses planned and in fact the original number was higher. It was reduced to give the large house with some holiday properties at the other end of the lane a bit of a buffer between it and the new houses. This is another old farm that was run as breeding and boarding kennels for donkey's years. When the kennels closed the property was still the original farm buildings and the people who bought it turned the main building into a luxurious home and the outbuildings into holiday cottages. It was sold for just under £1.5 million about 3 years ago and is the most expensive property in the town, far, far more expensive than the surrounding area.

We won't be moving because we're in a bungalow and the location is good for shopping, motorways, etc. We always hoped that the green belt label would protect us, but it turns out that the council will just designate a different bit of land instead to keep the numbers level. We've just decided it had to happen some time and crossing our fingers it won't be as bad as it sounds.

My sympathies go out to M0nica and everyone affected by changes to their environment.

One tip I read that we've used in our back garden needs a bit of geometry to get right. We're in a bungalow, but overlooked by a house. The neighbours we're joined on to chose to plant leylandii trees to stop the people in the house looking in their windows. These trees are now enormous and need serious attention at least once a year. We had a gardening book that showed us how to calculate the height of the something to block the view of our windows from the house. We used trellis set at the right height and grew ivy on it to create a wall of ivy blocking the line of sight of the people in the house.

I will try to use the diagram to explain. Ignore the numbers and just focus on the letters.

A= the top of the gantry (shown as a tall tree here)
C= where M0nica usually sits in the garden enjoying the view
The view of the gantry can be blocked by placing choosing something higher than the height of D to E e.g. a tree trellis or arch, etc.

I hope this makes sense and helps someone.

I am surrounded by houses though none of them actually overlook us and we have nothing directly in line with the back garden which makes it very private. A couple of years ago the house who owns the large garden behind us sold the land and we received a letter of intent to build a bungalow. I won't go into detail but I objected and it was not built. However as often seems to happen these days, the plans have now been passed.

The irony is that DS works for the builder and is likely to be building it!

M0nica, I know how you feel. A lovely view is priceless and such a tonic too.

I lived at my last house for nearly 30 yrs. It was built on a slight hill and the back garden sloped upwards very gently, so sitting down on the terrace and looking out we saw large trees from gardens at the back of us, which were far enough away not to cast any shade. It was like being in a secret clearing of a small wood with a wonderful variety of trees - so private even though we had houses at the side and back of us. It was a lovely green haven. Above the trees we got massive expanses of sky and nothing else.

About ten years ago the neighbours sold up and the new people cut down all the beautiful mature trees in the garden. He said trees were 'messy' None of the trees were any where near the house of buildings so weren't causing problems. He just didn't like them. I went right off them. (Philistines! ) Then people at the back moved away and new people moved in and they too chopped down the trees. Slowly the woodland all around my house vanished and I could see rooftops and aerials and satellite dishes, then loft extensions being built.. It sounds silly to say I felt really hurt and sad but I did. I got an even bigger expanse of sky to admire as I sat down but those trees were special, all beautiful and mature. I know trees cannot be your 'friends' but some people may understand why I cried when I heard the buzzing of chain saws from over the fence and watched proud, strong trees being felled for no good reason. ( I am the founding member of Tree Huggers Anonymous.)

So yes, views are precious. I have moved now and we have a lovely green garden and we aren't overlooked but I miss my big sky and the little bit of woodland I used to enjoy. I have kept OH busy planting trees (front and back) since we moved in. I hope your planting hides those unsightly gantries.

Thank you for all your sympathy and support and helpful ideas (*Wilma*).

Although electrification has been going on for years and they have been doing ground works on the line through the village for about a year, we had never actually considered whether the gantries would be visible from the house, we just assumed they would be hidden by the trees.

The gantries behind our house have all been erected in the last week. The work is done at night to cause minimum disruption to railway services and I suspect the offending gantry only went up the night before we noticed it.

The garden was one of the attractions of the house and the knowledge that surrounded by houses, most of them Listed, with the land behind us and the railway taken up by their gardens, we knew we couldn't be built behind. We never thought that our protector, the railway, would turn on us.

The same thing happened to us a few years ago, M0nica. Our bungalow is less than 100 yds away from the London to Kings Lynn line but fortunately there was no view to spoil because of the high embankment. Our unspoiled view is in the opposite direction.

I was horrified when the gantries went up but you soon get used to them. We have a high conifer hedge running along that side which means we can sit in the garden in total privacy. The trains whoosh by in seconds so the noise is not a problem. I'd rather have trains than heavy traffic any day.

I assume the gantries will detract from your view rather than block it. The trick is to plant trees and shrubs that will lead the eye away but not in such a solid block that it spoils the view entirely.

Don't despair.

Monica I think it is quite justified for you to feel upset - I would too. I hope the kind thoughts and ideas of people on here will help you to at least partly resolve the issue.

Bamboo make a lovely ‘blocker’ of anything unsightly, if you plant about four reasonably close together, within a couple of years they thicken up to create a green wall, and you have the height to start with.

We planted some bamboo in our garden and loved it. The rustling noise it makes when the wind moves it is so relaxing. We had to remove it though (which wasn't easy) because it sprouted up in so many different places including our neighbour's garden.

Later we found out that we'd planted running bamboo and not clumping bamboo. It's recommended that you dig about 2' down in the area where you are going to plant the bamboo and place metal sheets as a barrier to keep the roots from spreading. The other alternative is to grow it in large containers.

Unfortunately clumping bamboo is not always hardy and we get hard frosts, so we've not tried again. I do miss it though, so thanks for jogging my memory lemongrove. I just happen to have a very large planter standing empty!

I had my finger burned with bamboo; we already had phyllostachis aurea and against DH’s express wishes I added phyllostachis nigra, a variety which I had craved for a long time. They both grew to about fifteen feet, which was fine, but spread in an insane fashion including, like WKF, into my neighbour’s garden. So they had to go, but it took ages and a lot of hard work to eradicate them altogether. Shame really; I did love them and they are great for screening and aurea for bamboo poles!

I saw a man on a programme this week who had a detached house in the middle of farmland, lots of vegetables all around him.
It's now going to be turned into an enormous chicken farm, free-range. It was in Cornwall, I think.
3 pylons; that's nothing. Count your blessings.

By the way, electrification in the north was cancelled.
If you don't want it down there, send it up here.