A weekly newspaper has been criticised by its former editor after charging a council almost £50,000 for each public notice.

The Newsquest-owned Epping Forest Guardian said it would charge a total of £284,598 for placing six adverts relating to three parking reviews – with each costing £47,433.

The high costs mean Epping Forest District Council has been forced to freeze its plans for the reviews, rather than spend ‘excessive’ amounts of tax payers’ money on the public notices.

And the Newsquest group could even face demands to repay £20,000 it was paid for public notices in the free Epping Forest Independent – after being given the wrong information about its circulation area.

Former editor of the titles, David Jackman, who launched community news website everythingeppingforest.co.uk, is now calling for changes in the law so councils have a choice where to place their public notices.

He has sent a letter about the issue to local MPs, the Community and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and subscribers to his website.

In it, he says: “As you will no doubt be aware, local councils, under current legislation, MUST publish public notices for road schemes, parking changes etc, in a local newspaper – they cannot do it on a local news website, like mine, or in their own publications.

“In Epping Forest, where the Epping Forest Guardian is the only local newspaper that covers the whole relevant area, the publisher is able to name its price for advertising rates, knowing that there is no other avenue for the local authority to go down.

“As a result Epping Forest District Council is being charged £50,000 per public notice to publicise its parking reviews.

“Because of this, for the time being, the council has put a total freeze on the reviews, meaning changes to parking schemes, yellow lines etc, could now be dropped altogether.”

A total budget of £672,000 had been set by the council for the three projects, which Essex County Council was carrying out on its behalf.

The county council asked its publishers to find out the costs and circulation areas of advertising in different local newspapers.

But it says it was misinformed about the area covered by the Epping Forest Independent, leading to it paying £20,000 advertising costs for a consultation which later had to be aborted.

The councils are now seeking to recover these costs and associated officer time in preparing the adverts – either from its publishers or Newsquest.

A spokesman for the district council confirmed work on the parking reviews had been ‘temporarily suspended’.

She said: “The costs of the three ongoing parking reviews have increased significantly. This is largely due to the excessive advertising cost charged by the local newspaper.

“It is a legal requirement that all traffic regulation orders have to be advertised in the local paper.”

The spokesman added the authority was supporting the county council in seeking to recover £20,000 it paid in advertising but could not say whether this would be from the newspaper or the council’s publishers.