"Because they pay £574 per annum I'd guess"
Life membership is not cheap and implies a long-term commitment to the club. Given inflation and the fact that the club have the money 'upfront' I think we deserve the conditions we bought into to be honoured.
The promise was free parking when available and clearly Meteor Way is available.
Personally, aside from commitment to the club, part of why I got Life Membership was because after a long drive the last thing you need is to be looking for a parking space. Public transport is not an option as my nearest train station is half an hour away and the journey would involve a minimum of three changes.
They might say that there is no free parking available .... it's being bought from the council and costs passed on.
Without knowing how much they're paying the council, I don't know if they're passing on the full costs, passing on part of the costs or making a fat profit.
Given that the Committee had decided they no longer wanted to include free parking in the prevailing membership cost, they were faced with the option of increasing membership or charging to park. Probably fairer to make the users of the facility pay rather than all members.
When life members enrolled (personally I wasn't prepared to tempt fate!) I would imagine that they were expecting to receive all benefits accruing to members going forward for the rest of their lives rather than expecting to ring fence any benefits which might subsequently be withdrawn out of choice or necessity.
In my opinion, I'd rather the extra money didn't go into the playing budget as I have no confidence in Grayson's ability to spend it wisely, but that's another matter.