In the past the council has offered five free parking days in each town, with dates chosen by town councils and usually coinciding with events.
Parking manager Mike Rollo told Cockermouth Town Council that any request for free parking would now have to be funded from the £10,000 allocated to each town for local projects.
Town councillor David Malloy said: “I thought it was a bit rich - give us £10,000 and then ask for it back.
“Do we want to spend that £10,000 on parking when we are looking into CCTV cameras?”
Coun Alan Smith said: “There used to be five days of free parking tied in with events in the town. It’s a bit of a fallacy though as it’s often taken up by traders.”
Coun Eric Nicholson said not having free parking at this year’s Christmas lights switch on might be an opportunity to assess what impact it had.
He added: “It would be good to find out the cost then we could offer event organisers the opportunity to pay for it if they wanted.”
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