CARDIGAN traders staged a demonstration through town on Wednesday evening in a defiant show of force against Ceredigion County Council’s continuing refusal to introduce free parking periods.

Around 40 traders and shoppers bearing placards sang and chanted as they marched from outside Cardigan Castle down High Street to the Guildhall where a banner was unfurled.

Traders claimed last summer that free parking enforced by the vandalism of the town’s ticket machi­nes had boosted trade by around 20 per cent.

“We wanted to make Ceredigion aware that we are not going to go away on this issue,” Cardigan Traders chairman Martin Radley told the Cambrian News.

A Ceredigion County Council spokesman said: “The view is that parking charges must be applied consistently across all towns within Ceredigion in terms of covering the cost of providing car parking facilities and helping to meet the extraordinary financial pressures facing the council."

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