The ongoing dispute erupted back in March in response to a property developer lodging an application to construct a multimillion-pound flats development at Park Quadrant in the city's west end.

Park Quadrant sits next to Kelvingrove Park, and it was sold by the council to English-based developer Expresso for £6.3m. The firm want to build 98 flats on the site worth around £35m.

SNP MP for Glasgow Central, Alison Thewliss, raised the issue in parliament at Westminster and appealed to the city council to consider alternative development options for the site. A further nine MPs signed in support of the early day motion.

Ms. Thewliss said: "The Early Day Motion I have tabled in the House of Commons merely reflects public opinion in the local community and I very much hope that decision makers will heed this very strong local feeling and respond accordingly."

Altogether the council received over 200 letters of objection from locals and around 80 letters of support. However, architects at the centre of the plans are now being questioned over conflict of interest claims in relation to the letters of support.

The investigation is focused on accusations that employees at Holmes Miller, the agents for the developer behind the proposals, are the people behind the letters of support sent to Glasgow City Council.

In addition, locals claim that their alternative idea for public gardens and a pavilion to be built on the site has been hindered by delaying tactics by the council.

They claim officials have refused to process their planning application because they have failed to complete an environmental assessment of the site.

A spokesman for local Park and Woodlands Heritage Trust said: "The whole thing is nonsense because environmental assessments have already been carried out on behalf of Expresso Property.

"That is just one of the suspect tactics being employed to ensure our application never sees the light of day. Officials have taken up to a week to respond to each and every email from us knowing there's a time limit on the application process."

A spokesman for the council said: "The application was invalid for a number of reasons. We wrote to the applicant to try and resolve these issues, but they were not addressed."
In terms of members raising the plan in parliament, the spokesman added: "Committee will consider all representations in its deliberation."

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