Front brake disc shield opinion??

Mine are pretty shot,

Opinions on if they are really needed would be great??

where possible i allways remove them ,you usually find that side of disc worse than the outer

That's the answer I was looking for....... saved me £112

Of all the cars I have owned over many years, the Freelander is unique for this problem. The material used is absolute ****e. As far as I know, the rear brakes do not suffer from this issue, this is due to the rear backplates being made of thicker steel because they are structural-i.e. the brake mechanism, wheel cylinder and shoes etc. are directly mounted on it.
Mine are paper thin around the edges, every time I remove a front wheel I peel another chunk off. The r.h. (Drivers side) is slightly worse than the l.h.
I see no reason why they can't be removed and removal does not affect the MOT. I definately won't be replacing mine. It seems that the problem is so common that even the scrappies don't get any rust free ones.

I was going to ask the same.
What benefit are they since when I did take the FL off road I got a stone stuck in the calliper so they don't work as stone guards also was told they are a MOT fail without them?

i remove them were possible ,and not seen one fail an mot without them

Mine passed without them

Took both mine off once chunks started to fall off and cause scraping noises.