PICTURES showing crowds of locals sunbathing in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens have sparked a row over social distancing in the city.

BBC presenter and former rugby player John Beattie shared images on Twitter sent in by an exercising pal showing scores of people in the West End part lounging.

He wrote: "The Botanics in Glasgow today. From a pal.

"You're only uspposed to be out to exercise or shop."

He encouraged his followers to tune into his BBC Radio Scotland show at 4pm to share their views on the images - with mixed reactions.

One local, Stewart, said: "These are probably people who live in flats.

"You can't OK shops like B&Q opening with queues of people two metres apart but restrict people from sitting two metres apart outside, topping up their vitamin D, and improving their mental health.

"We need to allow this in our parks."

Another, David Scott, added: "It's all well and good to be told by those with nice gardens that you can't leave your flat to enjoy the sun unless you're exercising, but not everyone has that luxury.

"They are all well distanced and probably feel all the mentally better for having the grass beneath their feet."

And Matthew Kennedy added: "People are enjoying the sunshine and maintaining social distancing at the same time - nothing to see here."

However not everyone was convinced that it was acceptable.

Philip McLean said: "That's surely including people meeting up with others from different households - which isn't allowed."

Josh Henderson said: "We have the highest dearth rate in Europe for a reason.

"Clap for the NHS on Thursdays after being out for a picnic in the Botanics on Wednesday? Do me a favour."

And Nicola Rose said: "I feel really let down by the Government and the police by this. 

"Isn't someone meant to be controlling this? 

"Why are some people struggling at home but abiding by the rules, while others are getting away with breaking them?

"You can't blame people for not taking this seriously when authority isn't."

This morning, Nicola Sturgeon urged fed-up Scots to stick with lockdown restrictions – telling them doing so will see the measures lifted sooner.

The First Minister accepted some members of the public are “frustrated” at the measures, which were imposed more than six weeks ago as part of a bid to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The Scottish Government has published possible options for lifting some of the measures, but she said today that “the more we stick with it in the immediate days ahead, the easier and the quicker that will be”.

Ms Sturgeon said most people who have got in touch with her have said: “Please don’t lift this prematurely and risk a resurgence.”

She told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme that polling data shows “support for these measures remains very, very high”.

Ms Sturgeon said: “We’re at such a critical moment now. Every day I am able to look at data that says we are going in the right direction, but we haven’t gone yet sufficiently in the right direction to be confident that easing up won’t send us back.

“With every day that passes hopefully that position gets stronger and more certain and so I want to start getting us back to some semblance of normality as quickly as possible, so the more we stick with it in the immediate days ahead, the easier and the quicker that will be.”

While there have been suggestions the lockdown is fraying, with more people on the roads and large queues at reopened drive-through coffee shops, Ms Sturgeon insisted the public have been “magnificent”.

She added: “Obviously we do as government lots of tracking of public opinion, and that shows, and that is less anecdotal, that support for these measures remains very, very high.

“But this is the anecdotal bit, most of the people who contact me are saying ‘please don’t lift this prematurely and risk a resurgence’ as opposed to people saying ‘we’re so fed up of this we’re going to start doing what we like’.

“These will always be very careful balances but I have to try and reach the best possible decisions based on all of the evidence, and it will be a balance.”

Lockdown measures are due to be reviewed formally on Thursday but Ms Sturgeon has already warned it is unlikely significant changes will be made, stressing the “need to make sure at this critical juncture we don’t take action that could send the progress we are making into reverse”.

She said even when rules are eased, measures such as social distancing and wearing face coverings where appropriate will be even more important.

The First Minister said: “We are all going to continue to have social distancing as we get back to work, as life starts to get back to normal, social distancing, hygiene, wearing face coverings where it is appropriate, all of that becomes more important as we start to interact more with each other.

“This is horrendously challenging for everyone and we’re all going to have to work through it as we try to keep people as safe as possible.”