COUNCILLORS in the Dear Green Place have long boasted of their parks.

Now they want to check they actually own them.

City authorities in Glasgow have advertised for a legal intern to check the title to all of its open spaces to see which, if any, belong to its ancient Common Good Fund.

The move comes after years of pressure from campaigners who want all the council's assets studied to find what should, by rights, fall into the medieval kitty.

Green councillor Martha Wardrop believes the Common Good Fund status could be used to protect parkland - preventing its sale or curtailing commercial exploitation.

She said: "I think many of the parks were part of the Common Good and were established exactly for that, the common good.

"We all know that Glasgow Green was common, because citizens could graze their animals or hang out their washing on it.

"But I welcome any effort to systematically study the titles to our parks so they can be protected."

Five years ago it emerged that Pollok Park - then subject to plans for a commercial enterprise called Go Ape - belonged to the Common Good.

Council insiders warned such a status could bankrupt the fund, which has recently stabilised after decades of being plundered to pay for civic receptions and councillors' lunches.

The insiders fear that the fund - which stands at £16 million in capital - would not be big enough to foot the bill for maintaining parks.

Campaigner Bill Fraser believes Common Good land, including parks, has been sold off in the past and that the receipts were kept by the corporation, rather than put back in the fund. He said: "Common Good should go to provide common good for people."

Mr Fraser wants an audit taken of all assets, and while council officials claim this would cost a seven-figure sum, they are willing to review titles as and when they are required.

Ms Wardrop argues that reviewing older titles - any that existed before the regionalisation of local government in 1975 - would be a relatively straight-forward process.

Glasgow once controlled its tramway - a historic first - with Common Good and was almost as proud of the institution as it is now of its parks.

City insiders argue the Common Good is not really any different from any other fund the local authority has access to.

Councillors dispose of all money as they see fit, one said, and legal rulings seem to support this position.

A council spokesman said: "Over many generations, the council and its predecessors have accumulated titles to a huge range of properties and assets and we are looking for a legal intern to do some work cataloguing, researching and reviewing some of that paperwork. These records are important for a number of reasons; not least of all because they help describe some of Glasgow's history - and many of these titles will be made available in the city archives at the Mitchell Library.

"Some are also still important to the way the city operates today - including those held as part of the common good, or affected by changes to feudal ownership."

The intern, who will be paid, will also be expected to catalogue titles of properties owned by Glasgow's City Improvement Trust, the Victorian body that, inspired by the dramatic Haussmann reforms that created Paris's great boulevards, cleared some of the slums areas of the city, including the Saltmarket and High Street.