Shoppers save up £2.2m in a year thanks to free parking pledge

Shoppers visiting town centres across North Lincolnshire saved an estimated £2.2 million in the last year thanks to the council’s free parking policy – almost £100 per family.

New figures for the 2025 calendar year show more than 1.2m parking sessions were completely free, with fewer than one in seven drivers actually paying to park.

The average saving per visit was around £1.80. For a typical family making one trip a week to a town centre, that adds up to around £95 a year saved – simply by parking for free.

Cllr Rob Waltham, leader of North Lincolnshire Council, said: “This is real, practical help for local people at a time when every pound matters – and it’s a promise we made and have kept for more than a decade.

“Free parking keeps money in residents’ pockets and helps our town centres compete. While other councils have pushed charges up, we’ve stuck to our commitment to back shoppers, workers and local businesses.”

In the last year, only 197,000 parking sessions were paid for, compared to over 1.24m free stays, meaning around 86 per cent of all town centre parking was free.

Cllr John Davison, cabinet member for safer, stronger communities (urban), said: “We recognised early on that parking charges can put people off visiting town centres.

“That’s why we took the decision to remove them – and the numbers show it’s working. More people coming into our towns means more footfall for shops, cafés and markets.”

The council introduced its two-hour free parking policy more than a decade ago and later extended free parking to all day on Saturdays and Sundays.

Cllr Waltham added: “This isn’t about theory – it’s about consistently delivering what matters to local people and backing our high streets for the long term.”

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