A CAR parking review has concluded a council should commission a further study before making any changes to charges, leading to criticism from councillors.

Should another report be ordered, to consider variations in parking charges and inconsistencies including why there are no charges in some towns, it will be the third in five years, commissioned by Monmouthshire County Council.

Usk councillor Tony Kear said he couldn’t understand why a further review is necessary following the most recent, a 309 page tome produced by consultants AtkinsRealis.

The Conservative said: “I don’t know how much this report cost but I find it astonishing the result is to say you’ve not got enough data and we’ve got to revisit it. I struggle to understand why a report is being presented, and why it was initiated, without the correct analysis required to produce a result.

“It seems to me this is now going to have to cost the council more money to get more analysis on car park usage and I struggle to understand that.”

Labour member for Caldicot West End Jill Bond told the council’s place scrutiny committee which considred the review: “I’m quite surprised we didn’t have this level of information before.”

Council regeneration manager Daniel Fordham said had the authority requested that level of data when the report was commissioned there would have been an additional cost at that point and he said it didn’t know it would need the additional information.

He said the council needed to understand what data it requires “to make an informed decision about a charging strategy.”

AtkinsRealis were commissioned in 2024 to review Monmouthshire’s parking services including car park usage patterns and pay and display sales trends.

It was also asked to make recommendations for improved or amended charges, assessment of enforcement functions and capacity, how additional responsibility for enforcing pavement parking expected later this year will impact it, use of technology and benchmarking against neighbouring local authorities.

The council said the work would build on a strategy commissioned from Capita in 2020 which set out the council’s policy framework for managing parking.

The latest review found a lack of consistency in existing parking charges, and changes to the local context since the existing structure was introduced in 2014 but said the data needed for a specific recommendation isn’t yet available and a further review of existing car park use is required.

The report has also said as well as supporting the local economy, encouraging sustainable travel and reducing reliance on private vehicles, facilitating parking and reducing competition between towns the parking strategy should recognise the importance of revenue from parking to meet the costs of providing facilities, enforcement and contribute towards highways and transport services.

As a result the council’s Labour-led cabinet will be recommended that it keep the existing charging structure in place until it has the results of the further review.