A BIZARRE fight is to take place in Scotland’s highest civil court over decking in a family’s garden – which has not attracted a single neighbourly complaint. In a move costingthousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.
A local authority will challenge the Scottish Government over a private patch of land measuring just 16 x 10 foot.
The bureaucratic battle was triggered when a City of Edinburgh Council official spotted the timber platform in the back garden of a couple’s £450,000 home in the New Town.
Architecture lecturer Joseph Thurrott and his wife Julienne, both 44, say the decking has been in place for 10 years without objection from residents.
Council planners visited the Thurrotts’ home because a neighbour had complained about a tree house Mr Thurrott was building.
The family removed the tree house, but during the visit officials also took photos of their decking and sent an enforcement notice telling the Thurrotts they had to remove it.
Mrs Thurrott researched planning law and launched her own appeal, and a Scottish Government reporter visited the New Town flat in November. To the couple’s relief, he backed them and quashed the council’s enforcement order. But last week they received a letter telling them that the row had escalated further and the council was taking the Scottish Government to the Court of Session to appeal. Mr Thurrott, who is a practising architect and also lectures at Dundee University, said: “The original decking pre-dated us and we refurbished it when we moved in, in September 2009.
“The reporter was very complimentary about the decking in his written judgment. from Daily Express
Read what the Decking Network Members say here.
