UK NEWS

NEIGHBOURS AT WAR OVER THEIR BACK GARDEN

WAR; Back garden washing is provoking a war

Friday June 26,2009

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THE back green was traditionally a place where neighbours would meet for a friendly chat.

But a bitter row has erupted in one of Scotland’s most affluent streets over the right to hang out washing in the garden, which could end up in a £25,000 court battle.

For more than four decades, the owner of a basement flat in Fettes Row, Edinburgh, has blocked off the “drying green”, turning it into a private garden.

Infuriated neighbours who have historic rights to hang their washing in the back garden are now considering taking their fight to the Court of Session.

Pensioner Mary McKenzie moved into her basement flat in the elegant Georgian New Town terrace in 1966. She said she has spent several thousand pounds over the years on creating her private “oasis”, while blocking off the only route for other flat owners and refusing access via her own property.

She has been forced to fend off various attempts to secure access to the garden over the decades.

The current row was first triggered seven years ago, when part of the garden wall was demolished in the course of building neighbouring mews houses, angering her neighbours.

Mrs McKenzie is adamant she has done nothing wrong, insisting a land tribunal hearing in 1967 had effectively established she and her then husband were the sole owners of the garden, which was not used by neighbours. And last month a land tribunal backed her request for the scrapping of “drying green” rights.

Mrs McKenzie said: “No one has ever used the garden to dry their clothes and it’s always been our garden since we moved in. We’ve spent thousands of pounds on it over the last 40 years and it’s now a little oasis in the New Town. I feel vindicated by the tribunal findings, although we always felt we were in the right.”