I’m a car driver: give me stuff for free...

Councils, who've already had cuts, lose the revenue and there's zero evidence that local businesses gain.  So who exactly is free parking supposed to benefit? The only people I can think of is those who choose to make unnecessary car journeys and pollute the air during a respiratory pandemic. 

Big noise by a few people (including a councillor) about parking charges in Shropshire last year, with the usual pathetic excuses.

My attitude is: if you can afford to run a car and drive it into the town then you can afford to pay to park it on someone else's property while you're shopping.

(and the parking fee is probably a fraction of the amount they spend while doing so).

I agree, and in most cases these charges dont amount to more than the cost of a cup of tea, and yet the angst and ranting it seems to cause some motorists about it, feels completely out of proportion, why dont some of these councils grow some cojones for once and just tell people how it is.

there was an example during the first lockdown where a local council had removed free parking spaces to allow for social distancing queuing into shops on a market square. There was still a car park just a few hundred yards further away with plenty of spaces, but it cost a £1 to park there,it wasnt free. Youd have thought by the reaction the locals & local shops had to this the council had dug up their ancestors, burned all their property and stolen all their money, not just asked them to pay £1 to park a car, and in the end the council caved in and put the free spaces back.