A COMMUNITY group campaigning for a park to be created in the Merchant City has vowed to continue with its bid despite a lack of political support.

Members of Merchant City Park Ltd claim they have been “failed by officialdom” as today marks the closing date for bids on a plot of land they believe should be transferred to the community.

The group wants to turn the current NCP car park on Ingram Street into a park that would serve the local area for health, wellbeing and recreation.

Using community asset transfer legislation, the group hoped to take ownership of the area from Glasgow City Council.

But their plans were stymied when the council sold the plot to City Property, which is not covered by the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015.

The local authority plans to sell the land to a developer with bids due in by close of play today.

Eileen Mills, a director of the group, said: “We have been failed by officialdom.

“We feel the lack of response is almost waiting for the deadline to pass so that it will be too late to achieve anything.

“We expect we will hear apologies at some point if it is found that the legislation has been ignored but those apologies will be worth nothing.

“We will still keep trying. We are not going to give up today but we feel do feel that we have been failed and the legislation has not been followed.”

Merchant City Park Ltd is at loggerheads with the council over its handling of their case, saying the authority failed to engage correctly with them and has not correctly followed community empowerment legislation.

The council, however, denies this.

The group said it emailed the council on February 19 last year enquiring about consulting with the local authority about plans to submit an asset transfer request before making a formal request.

It says the council did not enter into consultation with it and, in March last year, sold the land to City Property, which meant it was no longer subject to asset transfer legislation.

Merchant City Park also asked the Scottish Government to designate City Property under the Community Empowerment Act but its request was ignored.

The group has written directly to Nicola Sturgeon but so far the First Minister has not responded.

An email to her office received the response of a Freedom of Information request case being opened - even though the group had not submitted an FOI request.

Merchant City Park has also gone to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman about the case but its complaint was rejected, which the community group says was unfair.

They have now asked for a review request but have yet to receive a response to this.

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “Once the closing date has passed, City Property will begin a process of considering bids from any interested parties.”