By Brian Allison, local government reporter

Dundee’S Botanic Gardens are in line for a substantial grant from the city’s common good fund.

The city council administers the fund, whose draft budget shows an available balance of more than £90,000 for the 2008/09 financial year.

Head of finance Marjory Stewart, in a report, said the fund’s assets are invested primarily in the council’s loans fund and it is estimated this will generate approximately £140,000 of income in 2008/09.

Almost £50,000 of that is already committed, including £30,000 to go towards the costs of Dundee’s Christmas lights.

Ms Stewart said the draft budget showed an available balance for the financial year of £92,000, most of which has been earmarked for the botanic gardens.

She said it had been accepted as custom and practice that the common good fund should not meet expenditure of a recurring nature and was solely to be used for one-off projects.

In recent years it has made contributions to a range of projects including the Admiral Duncan 200th anniversary celebrations (£20,000), the Ward Road Gym (£92,000), the Whitehall Theatre (£50,000), and the Dundee Heritage Trust for RRS Discovery (£10,000).

Explaining the background to the fund, Ms Stewart said common good was a term synonymous with the creation of burghs as trading counties.

“A burgh became a trading county when the king licensed that burgh to have markets, and at that time a burgh fund was set up and is now referred to as the common good fund,” she said.

Referring to the allocation to the botanic gardens, a spokesman for the council said the project for which it will be used, and therefore the exact amount, has not yet been determined.

“We are still in discussions with the University of Dundee about the detail of what support we can provide,” he said.

“We have said we are going to use some of the money (from the common good fund) but we have not yet agreed what it will be used for.”

For some time a question mark has been hanging over the long-term future of the botanic gardens because of the university’s need to cut its costs.