“Some parks are in a good condition but too many are in a dreadful state.

“It’s clearly a challenge given that the council has 400 open spaces to deal with, but we cannot continue to tolerate widespread graffiti and vandalism.”

He was stunned to discover that only 43 parks in Birmingham were subject to regular inspections by council staff.

A reorganisation of working methods, putting paid to a system where park rangers and wardens worked only in one or two individual parks, will enable regular checks to be carried out, he added.

Coun Mullaney said: “We had a situation where a person would be responsible for one park and would have nothing at all to do with another park that might be just down the road, claiming it wasn’t his job.

“All of that is changing and we now have area-based teams working with hand-held computers enabling them to conduct regular tours of parks and report back any damage that needs to be dealt with.

“If they discover graffiti, it will be removed as quickly as possible. The buck will stop with the park rangers who will be responsible for making sure this happens.”