A protestor determined to save Barrowlands Park is making his campaign political.

As first told in the Evening Times last December, Thomas Ramsay wants the temporary greenspace made permanent.

And now he's running for office in a bid to make that happen.

Mr Ramsay, an east end resident, said: "This park is the gateway to the east end and it has cost the city around £700,000 so it seems like an incredible waste of public money to get rid of it, particularly when it will cost thousands more to move the pathway artwork to a new space.

"I am down there all the time and I say to people, 'Do you know this park is only temporary?' and they look at me with gasping astonishment."

Mr Ramsay launched his campaign after seeing London Road Primary School, a B-listed building, torn down to make way for an extension to Celtic Park.

Some £660,000 of the £6.3 million Calton-Barras Action Plan was used to turn the derelict land - bounded by Gallowgate, London Road and Moir Street, the site of the historic Schipka Pass - into the park.

Mr Ramsay, 54, has set up a new online petition, which is currently on Glasgow City Council's website.

Now he is running in the Calton Ward's bye-election on August 6.

He said: "I'm just Tommy from the east end but I have the east end's best interests at heart and I want the chance to represent the area.

"Obviously there are a lot of other issues in this community to be looked at as well as the park - like the slashing of the mental health budget - and I feel that we never get improvements and we never get straight answers from the people in charge.

"I want to run in this bye-election to get the chance to walk into the City Chambers and look at some of these bureaucrats eyeball to eyeball while asking them for answers.

"There are already three local councillors for this ward and what have they done for the east end? Nothing."

Council bosses insist they have always been open about the fact the park is temporary and have no plans to back down, saying the local authority is only one of three owners of the site.

A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “It was always the case that Barrowlands Park was intended to be temporary whereas the artwork was permanent.

"The land on which the park sits has been designated a development site for a number of years.

"If the land was to be developed, the artwork would find a home in one of a number of nearby sites that have been identified.”