A former secretary of Hearts FC is taking the Borders Railway Project to a tribunal over a disputed compensation claim.
Leslie Porteous, who owned the former Porter’s bar in the Midlothian village of Gorebridge, is bringing the case against Scottish Borders Council to the Lands Tribunal for Scotland.
His former premises was bought under a Compulsory Purchase Order, with the new rail line to run right beside the building.
But Mr Porteous, who was at Tynecastle in the 1990s during the reign of Wallace Mercer, has taken the matter to the civil court under the Disputed Compensation Land Compensation (Scotland) Act 1963.
SBC expects Network Rail to take over the case at the procedural hearing on Monday, August 19 in Edinburgh before a three-day hearing, starting on October 28.
A spokesman said: “SBC is named in this case at the Lands Tribunal on the basis that the matter was raised prior to the transfer of project land and powers under the Waverley Railway (Scotland) Act 2006 over to Network Rail in November 2012.
“Since November, Network Rail has now assumed full responsibility for dealing with all residual land related matters of which this Lands Tribunal case is one.”
A NR spokesman added: “The Porter’s building is the old station house and is unusable at present due to its proximity to the railway works, but after the project is completed it could come back into use.”