Site fencing is usually bought as one item and specified as three. A fence around a construction site has to keep people out after hours, keep the public safe during them, and often screen the works from the street. Those are different jobs, and the product that does one well is frequently poor at another.

Decide what the fence is for before choosing it

If it must come down and move

Temporary panels are the answer. A welded mesh panel in a tubular frame, standing on feet or blocks, joined by clamps. No excavation, no concrete, and the whole line can be lifted and re-set as the works move across the site. That last property is the real reason this product exists: on a phased site the fence moves three or four times, and a permanent fence cannot.

If it must stay for the life of the project

A permanent welded mesh fence on driven or concreted posts costs less per metre than temporary panels and is far harder to climb or push over. It is the right choice for a long site boundary that will not move, and the wrong choice anywhere the line will be re-cut.

If it must screen

Only a solid hoarding screens. Mesh of any kind lets the site be seen, which is fine for a compound and unacceptable next to a residential street where the client has promised visual mitigation. A hoarding is a different product: solid panels on a frame, designed for wind, often with a return at the top to stop people pulling themselves over.

The two failure modes of temporary fencing

Almost every temporary fence failure on a real site is one of these, and neither is a panel quality problem.

The bottom gap

A panel standing on feet leaves a gap under the mesh, and a gap under the mesh is an invitation. Standard panels are made to sit at a set height above ground for a reason — so the panel does not rot or corrode in standing water — but the gap has to be closed where it matters, with a mesh skirt, a kerb rail, or by setting the line behind a barrier.

Wind uplift

A temporary panel is a sail on feet. It is not anchored into the ground, so resistance comes from the weight of the feet or blocks and from the continuity of the line. Empty panels blow over in a gale; panels with a mesh screen or banner attached blow over in a much lighter wind, because the screen turns the panel into a solid surface. Ballast is calculated, not guessed, and it has to be checked whenever a client adds branding to the fence.

Gates and access

Gate positions decide whether the fence survives. Every vehicle crossing is a place where panels get dragged aside and not put back. Plan the gate width for the largest vehicle that will actually arrive, provide a hard standing so the gate does not sink, and put the pedestrian gate where people will naturally walk rather than where it is convenient to draw.

What the specification should state

• Panel height and frame tube size, not just "temporary fence".

• Mesh aperture and wire diameter.

• Foot or block type and the ballast required, with the wind speed it was calculated for.

• How panels are joined, and whether the line is designed to be re-set.

• Coating, and whether it is expected to survive a coastal or industrial site for the duration.