Candleberry Ltd, which is based in Walkerburn, bought the already half-demolished St Mary's West Church from local businessman Alan Beattie in 2005.

Permission to demolish the church was originally granted back in 2000, with planning consent to replace it with flats and offices granted in 2005. Since then there have been numerous complaints from Selkirk residents over the state of the old church and Scottish Borders Council, fed up of getting its requests ignored, finally lost patience with Candleberry and last month issued an enforcement notice.

This came into force on June 9 and the firm had 28 days to start clearing the rubble – unless it lodged an appeal against the notice.

However, much to the fury of local councillors, this is exactly what Candleberry has now done, with the upshot being that it could well be several months before a Scottish Government reporter makes a decision on the appeal.

According to community council chairman Bob Kerr, Candleberry's actions show little respect for either Selkirk or its residents.

"That said, it is not entirely unexpected of them when one considers the condition of the backland property that they have also acquired within the town," said Mr Kerr.

"The whole community will be angry with this decision as it will only prolong the situation of this site from being fully developed.

"The developers acquired this site in its present condition and since doing so have done absolutely nothing with regards to clearing the site and building the new development that has been approved by both the community council and SBC planning department.

"The upshot of this appeal is that the town of Selkirk has to put up with what has been very often described as a leftover from a war-time blitz until a decision has been taken by a reporter appointed by the Scottish Government.

"It is nothing short of disgraceful the way in which this developer has shown so little respect for the town of Selkirk in the way that they are unwilling to at least clear this site, which is on one of the main entrances to the town."

But lead consultant for Candleberry on the project, architect Kanak Bose, says the enforcement notice was appealed against because it had been incorrectly served on two individuals instead of on the company itself.

"We are not trying to be difficult about this. The council (SBC) needs to tidy up its act when it comes to serving notices on people. Their diligence in tracking down the correct owners of properties is clearly lacking," he said.

And he went on: "We now have planning permission for the storing of the stone, so I would expect instructions to be issued in the the next two to three weeks to start looking at taking down the remainder of the building and clearing the site," he said, adding that he expected actual work to start on the site by the end of July.