SOUTHEND Council has been accused of a “complete U-turn” after spending more than £50,000 on hiring consultants to create a report on parking document – in order to create their own.

The council paid a consultancy firm £52,400 to assess parking in the borough.

But when the 110-page report was published in September it was slammed for proposals such as increasing parking charges on the seafront and turning Queensway into a single-lane carriageway.

The council initially claimed it was considering the proposals and planned to hold a public consultation but it is now forming a working party that will work towards creating another strategy.

At a full council meeting last Thursday, councillor Andrew Moring, chairman of the traffic and parking working party, said: “There was confusion about what this report was, as though it were council policy but that is not the case, it is a specialist report.

“The whole point about this paper was to create a working party to look at the external report and turn it into our own parking and access strategy.”

Independent councillor Martin Terry said he believes the report was no longer considered to be the strategy because of its contents, such as the attempts to make people park away from the seafront, a measure which has been tried in the past and he said was an “abject failure” when it was tried in the past.

Mr Moring said the report was never intended to be council policy and there is “no way” an external report would have been used.

After the meeting, seafront trader Paul Thompson, said: “It is a complete U-turn and it is rather embarrassing for councillor Andrew Moring and the council to have to change the strategy document.

“I look forward to members of the business community being invited to take part in this working party as I think at least two or three should have a place on it.

“It is sad that John Lamb promised a parking strategy in 2016 but it seems like this U-turn has taken us back to square one.”

A council spokesman said: “The parking and access strategy was a report commissioned by the council and carried out by independent transport experts.

“It does not represent council policy.

“In September, the council’s cabinet agreed to consider the recommendations of this report to help develop a wider – and yet to be agreed – access, parking and transport strategy.”

The cost of the parking strategy was revealed in a newsletter from the Burges Estate Residents’ Association but the council did not comment on the cost.