The price of diesel today soared above £1.30 a litre in parts of the West Midlands as fuel costs hit record highs.
The rises are so crippling one haulage firm in South Staffordshire has started charging customers an extra surcharge.
Yesterday the Express & Star revealed how fuel prices have seen their biggest monthly rises for over 30 years, with the AA saying increases on such a large scale only normally happen after natural disasters. Transport firms are now having to find ways of meeting the extra cost.
Andrew Kay, who runs Kay Transport Services, in Coven, said: “It is rising all the time and we are passing a lot of that cost on to customers just to make sure we can manage in what is a very competitive industry.
“We have managed to negotiate a surcharge to customers on top of our existing rates to offset some of that cost, but obviously it is causing us difficulty and we are coming under real pressure.
“A lot of our customers in the Black Country are not exactly thriving at the moment because of the way the economy is, so there is a lot of pressure on everyone. So obviously things are difficult.”
Paul Edwards, the managing director of Thornleigh Freight, in Manchester Street, Oldbury, said: “Petrol prices can have a devastating effect, in 12 months time there may not be the same amount of hauliers there is now.”
Colin Bateman, managing director at CJ & L Bateman on the Wallows Industrial Estate in Brierley Hill, said he was being forced to hike up prices for customers in the steel industry to cope.
“Since November the price of diesel has gone up by 14p a litre, we buy 9,200 litres a month so that is a price rise for me of some £1,300 which is a lot of money,” he said.
Diesel now powers half of all new cars sold in the UK and the average price of a litre nationwide is now £1.24, while petrol prices now average £1.12p a litre.
Earlier this week the price of oil hit a new record of almost $130 a barrel in trading.
By Tom Edwards
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