This was the scene on the M6 in Cheshire today as around 100 lorry drivers and other motorists took part in a go-slow protest over fuel prices.

Up to 80 lorries, along with vans, cars, motorbikes and a caravan, crawled across the northbound section of the Thellwall Viaduct.

They had set off at 9am under police escort from Lymm Services at Warrington on their way to Carnforth in Lancashire in a 120-mile round trip.

Protest organiser Tony Burridge, who works for Valera, a commercial cooking and refrigeration equipment company, said: “It is not just hauliers who are facing hardship and having to make cutbacks and redundancies.

“Looking at the line-up of vehicles and people who have turned out today you can see that the high cost of fuel is hurting people in all walks of life.

“I am confident that by standing together and staging this peaceful protest we can make the Government reduce fuel duty.”

Among those who joined today’s protest was Steve Richardson, the owner of a Manchester-based chauffeur company. He said his fuel bills had risen in the last six months from £1,700 a week to £2,500.

Mr Richardson said: “I can’t pass all of the fuel cost increases on to my customers. If I did I would have no customers left. The only solution is to make cutbacks wherever I can. That means letting people go and denying others the pay rises they need and deserve. I’m angry fuel duty is putting me out of business.”

Steve O’Hare, a shift worker in the IT industry, pays £75 a week to commute from his home in Crewe to work in Manchester. He said: “I wish I could use public transport to get to work but I have to use my car because the trains don’t run at 4am.

“I work hard and I have a family to support and it is getting more and more difficult to survive.”

Police advised motorists to only travel on the M6 if necessary, and warned that the M56 and M62 may also become heavily congested.