The council and Julian Spalding, the city's director of museums, are pressing for private legislation to allow Burrell items to travel abroad. Six parliamentary commissioners - a mix of MPs and peers - are expected to take evidence from both sides at a public hearing in Glasgow this summer.Requests for borrowing items come from all over the world to the Burrell, which boasts a collection of Gothic art second only to New York's Metropolitan Museum's, and incomparable works by Degas.Mr Spalding says overseas lending will raise the international profile of the collection and the city. His critics whisper that Mr Spalding, a front-runner for the directorship of the Victoria and Albert Museum, is motivated by a desire to raise his own profile.The trustees insist that the original terms of the shipping magnate's bequest should be honoured. Colin Donald, former lawyer to Sir William's nephews and one of the Burrell's five trustees, politely describes the council's move as "an unusual procedure for changing a will", and plays down the growing animosity between the two camps.But he admits the row has been rumbling for some time. "Both sides would have liked to resolve this privately," he says. "No one likes to battle in public." But compromise, he argues, would be impossible.

"You either lend abroad or you do not."Mr Donald never met Sir William who died in his nineties in 1958 and began his passionate collecting at the turn of the century. The multi- millionaire shunned publicity and is popularly remembered as dour and miserly.He has no close living relatives, but Mr Donald claims the trustees - who include John Logan, Sir William's former lawyer - reflect the views of distant Burrell relatives and that they remain true to the path Sir William himself wanted to follow.Until a gallery was purpose-built for the collection, it languished below stairs in secret locations around Glasgow. Another bequest condition that the "works of man" be seen amid the "works of nature" sparked a 39- year search for the right gallery location before it was housed in Pollok Park.Sir William always wanted the collection kept and shown together, said Mr Donald. The senior trustee points to the "explosion" when Sir William discovered the city had loaned a few works to Switzerland in 1953 "Sir William was meticulous," said Mr Donald "He was very clear about what he wanted.

You cannot play hard and fast with the original rules." He warns there is a wider issue; the discouraging effect an overturning might have on future bequests.But Mr Spalding insists a change to the bequest if crucial if the Burrell is to take its rightful place in the world. "I can put a Burrell item on a plane in Glasgow and fly to London but I cannot fly it to France or the New York because that would mean travelling over water."We borrow from the great museums of the world and they want something back," he argues "That is fair enough. Burrell is one of the great world collections but it will disappear from public view unless it takes part in overseas exhibitions. Its profile will simply sink."Mr Spalding argues that Sir William would no longer insist on a lending condition which took root in a time when works of art were transported by ships which had an horrendous safety record."Burrell was a ship owner who didn't trust ships," concludes Mr Spalding.. JOHN REDWOOD, the right-wing Welsh Secretary misled the House of Commons over plans to dismember wildlife and countryside protection in the Principality, according to a paper being circulated privately by a recently retired top official. The charge - by Professor Gareth Wyn Jones, until last month Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Scientist of the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW), the Principality's official watchdog - follows plans for deep cuts in conservation announced by Mr Redwood last weekend. The plans were exclusively forecast by Independent on Sunday in January, provoking vigorous attacks on the newspaper by Welsh ministers. Mr Redwood - who last year bracketed environmentalists with "European neo-Nazis" and "totalitarians in China" as enemies of democracy and capitalism - released details of the plans on the Saturday morning of the VE weekend, when they could be expected to attract the least possible public attention.He is planning to stop the CCW funding country parks and buying threatened landscapes or wildlife sites to save them from destruction, to restrict its programme of clearing footpaths, and to reduce its influence in stopping damaging development through the planning system.

He has already cut the budget of the watchdog - which has successfully opposed him over several major developments - by a sixth, and wants to reduce its staff by a third over the next two years.Conservationists and senior Department of the Environment officials believe that the cuts will prevent the CCW carrying out its statutory obligations - and this is at the root of the charge that Mr Redwood has misled the House of Commons.The allegation - which is strongly denied by the Welsh Office will be pressed home by Mr Ron Davies, the shadow Welsh Secretary, in Parliament over the next few weeks. It will severely embarrass Mr Redwood, who has already been described as "batty" and "out of control" by cabinet colleagues.It arises from an exchange between Mr Davies and Mr Redwood on 2 March, when the Welsh Secretary said that his opposite number "should accept that I met the whole board of the Countryside Council for Wales. I granted the CCW the amount that the board said that it needed to meet its obligations, and the board members clearly stated that the CCW could meet all its statutory obligations."But in a paper in the hands of the Independent on Sunday, Prof Wyn Jones says that these assertions were "incorrect". He says that Mr Redwood was told at the meeting - which was held at the Welsh Office in London on 24 January - that the funding was not adequate for the CCW to fulfil its "duties and functions" and adds that it has "consistently requested additional money to meet obligations" and had "written to the Secretary of State stating that it may not be able to meet its obligations".The paper adds: "The Secretary of State's actions have consistently undermined the capacity of the body, charged in Wales by statute with the conservation of wildlife and landscape and with the promoting of their interpretation and enjoyment, to carry out its functions and obligations."Speaking from Vienna - where he was lecturing - late last week, Prof Wyn Jones said: "There is no question but that he was misleading the House." Mr Merfyn Williams - who was present at the meeting as a member of CCW's board (but has since resigned from it ) agrees that Mr Redwood's was "a misleading statement". And Mr Davies adds: "I believe that Mr Redwood deliberately misled me on the floor of the House."The Welsh Office strongly denies this, but it does not deny that, before he stood up in the House of Commons, Mr Redwood had received a letter from the CCW requesting more money so that it could carry out its statutory duties.Mr Redwood's plan suggests that local authorities may take over some of the functions of the CCW, but both the Assembly of Welsh Counties and the Council of Welsh Districts - the two bodies representing councils in the Principality - say that they would be reluctant to do so unless the Welsh Secretary gave them extra funds.Mr Michael Perry, Secretary of the Assembly, said that it could cost more for the local authorities to take on the tasks.