The petrol station boss who sent diesel through the £1 barrier this week insisted today: “I am not robbing anybody – I am just surviving.”
Texaco garage owner Shailesh Parekh added: “ I am not pleading poverty but there must be an easier way to make a living.” Diesel went up this week to 103.9p a litre on his forecourt.
It has since reduced to 101.9p, but he says there is only 4p profit in that for him – and part of that goes towards paying his eight staff and other overheads in the 24-hour-a-day operation. The 43-year-old father of two from Solihull, bought the petrol station on the Stafford Road, Wolverhampton, just outside the city centre three years ago.
He continued: “I cannot paint the town red earning that kind of money.
“It does not give me any pleasure to increase the price but the only other option is to close the place down and sell it for flats.”
He sells around 4,000 litres of diesel a day and admitted: “I am earning a decent living out of it but the real culprits are the Government – and they are the real winners because they pocket 66p of the price motorists are currently having to pay on my forecourt.
“I am just charging an economic price.”
Mr Parekh, who has lived in this country for more than 20 years, once charged more than £1 a litre for diesel in April two years ago but predicted that it it was unlikely to drop below that price again.
Two pence of duty was added by the Government this week, and another 2p a litre will be added next April.
He said: “ I am thinking of not displaying the cost in signs by the roadside – you are only obliged to do it at the pump.
“The customer is not happy about the present price.
“I do not get personal abuse but I have had a lot of people asking why it is so high and it is important that they should know the facts.”
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15 Comments
Two decimal places in one number - never seen that before.
I had the pleasure of filling my tank up in USA a couple of weeks ago. Gas (petrol) was 40p per liter. As the raw material is purchased by all countries on the world market at the same price per barrel why is UK charging 100p plus per litre? What to they do with the excess?
That’s exactly what I expected. Every increase in fuel is always offloaded to the customers, otherwise businesses would come tumbling down!
It all started to go downhill when the prices were quoted per litre. That way they figured they could get away with higher increases.
We are totally being taken for a ride with the fuel in this country. If something good came from it I don’t suppose we’d be complaining, but I don’t see any improvement in public transport from all the money raised from fuel tax. The billions are going somewhere, but where exactly?
Car use is still cheap. Over the past 30 years the cost of owning and using a car has remained virtually static in real terms. Meanwhile bus/rail fares have increased a massive 75% in real terms. It ain’t the car driver who’s losing out.
Most people could save more than the 2p/litre increase by driving within the speed limit and avoiding harsh acceleration, both of which would improve fuel consumption. Better still, just walk or cycle wherever possible and don’t use the fuel in the first place.
Re: USA - they consume twice as many resources per head as the rest of the developed world, which is basically indefensible. Part of the reason is that the US government subsidise private motoring even more than ours do.
There is no link between fuel duty and transport expenditure, because it is general taxation just like income tax and VAT.
dominic. are you a politician in the making? or do you just enjoy talking from your backside?
the amount of tax on petrol is a crime in itself. the only reason the public put up with it is because we are forced to.
one day this country will go to pot and stuff like the amount of tax on petrol will really hit the public agenda, when it does the government will do something about it…until then we can all sit here and moan. Anyone enjoy paying the tv license? that’s great too aint it!
If you don’t want to pay fuel duty - don’t have a car. There is a choice.
Everything in my previous post is fact.
Incidentally I do own a car, and am not anti-car. However, car usage in the UK is way too high and needs curbing. The only way that’s going to happen is by the introduction of road pricing and fuel duty increases so that drivers pay the full cost of their journey (which they don’t at the moment). At the moment motoring is artificially cheap. Public transport users have experienced massive real terms increases in the cost of fares, whereas motorists have benefited from the cost of running a car being static in real terms for over 3 decades. Car drivers are not getting a raw deal here.
Since there’s mounting evidence we’re approaching peak-oil, or already have done… the cost of oil is going to rise hell of a lot in the future fuel duty rises or not.
only make 4 pence a litre. ?
You have my sympathy, we were on holiday in Wolverhampton area, stayed at my mates house, went out to fill the rental car up with gas one Saturday morning,1/2 tank = $50.00 usd !! my wife asked where I had been, I told her I went on my own so she would not see a grown man cry !!
Wake up world and figure something out.
Dominic makes some good points about the need to face up to the future of travel and transport in an age where global warming is an proven and unredoutable fact.
Jack has not addressed any of Dominic’s points, you have just written a factless rant. So we can ignore his post; it is pointless.
Frank, Dave and jack,
I dont like paying a pound/litre anymore than you do, but every penny the Chancellor pockets at least stays in the UK.
As world oil production continues to fall - YES - look at the figures and facts if you dont believe me - oil is going to get vastly more expensive anyway, so we had better to get used to paying poundS for a litre.
The more we spend on it, the more goes into the pockets of the - mostly unfriendly - oil exporting nations, a club the UK left recently as our own North Sea fields are dying.
IMO, the governments are well aware that Peak Oil is at least a year behind us now and that it is all downhill from now on, but they dont want to excite a panic on the financial markets.
Think about it. Ever less oil means progressively less of everything -especially transport - and no more economic growth for the foreseeable future.
You dont get elected promising a future like that.
Why so many foreigners/asylum seekers are so interested in getting in to our country, is beyond me, and no wonder so many British are moving abroad. Tax and Vat in this country is a complete rip off.
People like Jack are a pain and just cant stop whinging,Its like being married to a woman who is no good, you know your a fool but you just cant help it
It’s good to know that everything you previously posted are facts Dominic. Before you confirmed this, I thought they were just figures you quoted to support your twisted opinions. Shows how wrong one can be.
I wold never buy fuel from a station that didn’t display the price on a sign on the forecourt. It’s snyed and morally bankrupt even if it is legal.
i remember this station being 1 of the dearest in wolverhampton a couple of years ago . nothing has changed