Concerns have been raised over the sincerity of the county council’s environmental promises in the run up to Christmas.

A Monmouthshire resident has raised questions over Monmouthshire County County’s pledges of environmentalism as council car parks are free to use over the Christmas period, whilst users of public transport still have to pay full price.

Car parking provisions are considered an important issue to residents in and around Monmouth, specifically for people with disabilities or limited mobility. However many older people and those with disabilities often too rely on public transport to maintain their link to the town.

Resident Dilly Boase questioned as to what evidence there was to suggest that free parking helps businesses, inferring that the county council may be miscorrelating traffic with revenue.

She added: “Jane Pratt is MCC cabinet member responsible for climate change and decarbonisation, no? Does the supposed money trump the damage to Monmouth and wider Earth from fuming cars? Why not subsidise buses?”

In response to Ms Boase’s suggestion a spokesperson from Monmouthshire County Council said: “This is a great idea that we will look to explore in the future. This is not possible for 2021 as there are many elements of ticketing and travel pass schemes to consider first including cross border ticketing issues that would need to be resolved before any scheme could be implemented. As part of Active Travel we would encourage residents to use public transport wherever possible, however we acknowledge that some residents don’t yet feel ready to return to using public transport due to the pandemic and others for whom it is not suitable.”

They added: “Free weekend parking in council owned car parks in December has been introduced to help support our local independent business in the approach to Christmas, to encourage everyone to shop locally. We hope that this will help businesses after what has been almost two years of unprecedented challenges brought by the pandemic.”

As part of Monmouthshire County Council’s climate emergency strategy, which was release in October 2019, and their updated action plan brought out in November this year, placed a very small role on public buses. During the Monmouth Climate Future Festival, it was discussed from residents, from across the political spectrum, during the political panel how poor the Monmouth bus service has become.