Councillors trying to bring back a popular parking scheme for residents have been told they are not allowed to by the council's legal team.

Five months after the Sutton South, Cheam and Belmont Local Committee voted to give more free visitor parking vouchers to residents, at the 11th hour, the council has kiboshed the plans.

In July members of the committee agreed to allocate £7,700 of public realm funding to allow it to give back 200 hours free parking vouchers to residents who live within two Controlled Parking Zones (CPZ).

But Sutton Council has said that despite a report having been carried out by the head of parking services, which included detailed costings, the committee can not spend its money on reintroducing the scheme which the council implemented in 2006.

In 2006, 200 hours of visitor parking was given free to residents living in the CPZ, however only a year later that allocation was reduced to 100 hours in order to save the council £61,600, and was further reduced to 50 hours last year.

The report shows that allowing 50 hours free visitor parking vouchers to be increased to 200 hours would cost the council £2.16 per household, from £18.02, to £20.18.

Of the parking zones in question, Sutton South has 2751 houses within the CPZ, 822 of the which currently have free vouchers.

In Belmont there are 378 houses in the CPZ, with 107 of the currently applying for free vouchers.

Tony Shields, chairman of Sutton South, Cheam and Belmont Local Committee, is outraged at what he calls an affront to democracy.

He said: "I listed to residents and they want their 200 hours vouchers back. By not allowing this it is hitting the vulnerable and the elderly the hardest as they need visitors to come and look after them. The fact it has taken the legal services team five months to say we can't allocate these funds shows the incompetence and bureaucracy within this council."

Heather Honour, Liberal Democrat councillor for Sutton South, who abstained from voting for the increase on the grounds she did not have enough information, said: "It's disappointing it has taken five months to find out we, as a committee, can not discuss this."

Sanjay Prashar, executive head of Legal and Democratic Services said: "The Belmont and South Sutton Local Committee took a decision at its meeting on July 5, 201. The advice of the council’s Monitoring Officer is that the committee did not have the legal or constitutional authority to take the decision that it made."