Why is fuel in city pricier than national average?

11:47am Friday 2nd May 2008

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FUEL prices in Worcester are higher than the national average and above many other parts of the county.

Nationally, petrol and diesel prices are at a 20-year high and yesterday the AA reported the national average petrol price was 110.2p per litre - for diesel it was 120.5p per litre.

In all the city's petrol stations your Worcester News spoke to, prices were higher.

A petrol station manager in Worcester, who did not want to be named, said the price of fuel in Worcester was due to petrol stations keeping an eye on each other's prices.

He said "We get phone calls to say go up or go down. They keep a record of it so they know when everyone else moved. I do not know who is directing the phone calls.

"It will keep going up, I do not know for how long, but it could be £1.50 a litre by September."

A spokesman for the Office of Fair Trading said: "As long as garages are individually setting their prices they are not doing anything wrong. Price fixing is where people come together to fix the price."

Worcester MP Mike Foster said he would look into the regional difference in prices.

He said: "I will start to make inquiries. If they are charging more in Worcester than in close localities then they are ripping off my constituents, and that I will not be impressed with. If it is the case I will be raising it with them."

According to the website petrolprices.com, which compared prices at 33 petrol stations within a 10-mile radius of Worcester, the lowest price for unleaded petrol is 108.9 and the highest 114.9. For diesel, it was 118.9 and 124.9.

One Worcester man makes a point of filling up outside the city. Tony Lawrence, aged 54, of Margaret Road, St Johns, drives a diesel car and regularly visits his mother in Cheltenham. He said: "I wait to fill up in Cheltenham because it is significantly cheaper. It is a rip-off that diesel is more expensive than petrol. It is cheaper to produce and greener."

Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at uSwitch.

com, said: "As a direct result of these price hikes, it would be no surprise to see more motorists leaving their car at home and using other methods of transport.

"Drivers who are reliant on their cars for business or live in remote areas will be hardest hit - for them, leaving the car at home is not an option."