A couple who won a five-year battle over a family home development claim they've been "humiliated" by council planners after criminal charges were pressed against them.
Allan and Janet Brooks were accused of flouting greenbelt rules by building garages next to two new detached houses.
Prosecutors have now scrapped the case, but the long-running dispute has cost the couple tens of thousands of pounds in fees and legal costs.
Civil engineer Allan, 52, wants an inquiry into the conduct of council officials, claiming they published misleading information about the plans.
The couple are building the houses for their sons on ground that they own next to their own home in Leaburn, near East Kilbride.
Planning permission was granted in 2017, but work was halted after they began to construct two garages without consent.
After an application to add garages to the scheme was rejected, South Lanarkshire Council served an enforcement notice on the couple.
Officials demanded that they demolish the partially-built garages and ensure a 7.5m wide landscape buffer to protect the adjoining greenbelt.
Last year Allan and Janet were charged with the criminal offence of failing to comply with an enforcement notice.
The local authority said it had given them nearly three years to demolish the garages before referring the matter to prosecutors.
But shortly before their trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court last month the couple were told it would not proceed.
A spokesman for the Crown Office said: “After careful consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case, including the available admissible evidence, the procurator fiscal decided that there should be no further proceedings taken at this time.
"The Crown reserves the right to proceed in the future.”
Allan said they had not removed the garages because they believed the enforcement notice was invalid and "riddled with false statements".
He said their planning application to construct the garages had been amended by a council officer to state that the site had been extended into adjacent greenbelt when this was not the case.
On top of that, a planning report cited road safety concerns when the authority's roads department insisted there were no issues.
Allan said another complaint was that drawings showing the development footprint had not been published alongside other documents on the council's online planning portal.
He told Lanarkshire Live : "Were it not for these factors I believe our planning application would have been successful.
"The council's head of planning was asked on several occasions to meet with us and our legal representatives.
"This was refused and our concerns about the way the case had been dealt with were ignored.
"Yet we have paid the council thousands of pounds in relation to our planning applications.
"I never expected we would end up in court. The council got personal and humiliated us.
"I think they thought we would back down and at times I've felt like walking away from it all.
"We didn't but we spent tens of thousands of pounds on legal fees.
"Had the case gone to trial I believe the evidence against the planners would have been overwhelming. There should now be an inquiry into how we were treated.
"We intend to pursue South Lanarkshire Council for all costs incurred."
It's understood the council will no longer pursue the enforcement notice and the couple will be free to complete building work.
A council spokesman said: "We are disappointed that the procurator fiscal has decided not to pursue the failure to comply with the enforcement notice.”
In an earlier report the council said the "design, size, scale and positioning" of the garages were "incongruous" and such development in a countryside setting could not be justified.
But Allan insisted all the work was being done within garden ground and a hedge had been planted to screen buildings from the fields.
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