A COUPLE fighting the council over the ownership of a memorial garden in Morningside are taking the battle to court in a bid to hold on to the land.

Joanna and John McCoach have served an interdict on the council stopping them from re-opening the garden to the public.

Neighbours had been celebrating last month when the Registers of Scotland dismissed their claim to ownership of the garden off Chamberlain Road.

The walled garden – which houses the tomb of city botanist John Livingston – had been a popular spot with people in the area, and had been renovated by the council. But, after buying the adjoining house, the couple erected a fence around the garden, and sealed off the entrance.

The council told the McCoaches it owned the land and ordered the fence torn down. But the couple refused, sparking a long-running wrangle, which appeared to have been solved by the Registers of Scotland ruling last month.

But Mr and Mrs McCoach have now appealed against that decision and served an interdict on the council. The dispute will now move to the Court of Session.

The Greenhill and Church Hill Residents’ Association and the city council paid for a major overhaul of the garden in 1999.

Then local councillor Mike Pringle, who is now the Lib Dem Edinburgh South MSP, said today: “This has gone on far too long, and is completely unnecessary. This is a community piece of land, and I remain absolutely determined to see it returned to the public, rather than be used for the gain of two individuals.”

It is believed that the land where the tomb stands belonged to the Greenhill Estate, which was inherited by John Livingston in 1636. He died of the “black death” only nine years later. In 1989, council officials tracked down a London lawyer who told them there were no longer any trustees of the Greenhill Estate, so they took out a title on the land. The title was not challenged within the allowable ten-year period, so in 1999 the council got what it believed was an unassailable title on the land, lodged with the Land Register.

But when the McCoaches bought the property next door in 2004, they claimed to have documents proving it was theirs.

But the Registers of Scotland came to the conclusion that the garden and tomb do not form part of the legal title of the neighbouring property.

Bridget Stevens, chairwoman of Merchiston Community Council, said today: “This dispute has been going on for many months now and people are fed up with the to-ing and fro-ing. They want the situation resolved, and to have things back the way they used to be.”

The council said it did not comment on individual legal cases.

The McCoaches were unavailable for comment.