CONTROVERSIAL plans to roll out parking permit schemes in Stroud which cost £156,000 have been halted.

Gloucestershire County Council had been planning to make changes to on street parking in the market town.

The proposed parking permits would have cost people £61.80 a year for one car and an additional £123.60 for the second.

While businesses could have faced a cost of £320 a year for a parking permit.

Stroud Town Council questioned the proposals and the timing of them during the cost of living crisis and the challenges many face.

During the consultation period last year nearly 100 people - including several councillors - attended a meeting at the Crown & Sceptre pub to discuss the plans, including the Stroud Chamber of Trade chair Tony Davey. 

They said that to many residents and businesses it felt like a money-making scheme, rather than a desire to solve parking problems.

At the time Mr Davey said: "Imposing a permit scheme would 'make no difference at all, except for making residents up to £185 a year worse off – for no guarantee of a space."

Stroud Town Councillor Adrian Oldman asked highways cabinet member Dom Morris (C, Fairford and Lechlade) on Wednesday, May 22 if he thought the £157,231 spent on the now halted scheme was good value for money.

Cllr Morris told those present at Shire Hall that he did not think it was good value for money.

He has set his team the task of looking at how they can improve their parking reviews and learn from what’s gone wrong.

“I’m not comfortable with that figure,” he said.

“I think it cost us too much.

"Part of highway transformation is looking at how we deal with all of our network.

“As a Conservative, I think we have a duty to our taxpayers and those who use our roads to use that money wisely.

"We haven’t abandoned this, we’ve asked the community, we’ve listened and we are not proceeding.”