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MID ARGYLL drivers have managed to escape the predicted fuel crisis this week - but local businesses are feeling the strain of a 30 per cent rise in fuel prices this year alone.
Scotland is expected to face a major fuel crisis following the shutdown of the country’s only oil refinery at Grangemouth, and panic buying has already started in other parts of the region.
The whole of Scotland could be without fuel for up to a month, as the former BP refinery has to close to make it safe before industrial action by staff this coming Sunday and Monday.
Despite Lochgilphead’s Tesco petrol station running out of diesel late Tuesday afternoon, they received another delivery that night. A spokesperson said: ‘We have been slightly busier than usual but nothing we can’t handle. I certainly wouldn’t say that customers have been panic buying and it wasn’t too unusual running out of diesel a few hours before another delivery arrived.’
The town’s Riverside Filling Station had plenty of fuel to go around, and a member of staff told The Argyllshire Advertiser that it had not experienced panic buying from customers.
However, with diesel now costing £1.21p a litre and unleaded petrol £1.11p in Mid Argyll, the huge hike in prices is being described as a ‘massive drain’ on finances for local businesses.
Allan Johnston, a partner in Coille Haulage based at Kilmory, believes that diesel and petrol prices continue to rise ‘almost on a daily basis’, and says it if carries on, we are also sure to see a rise in umemployment figures.
‘To get round the problem of rising fuel prices, we have to pass the cost onto our customers, and they in turn have to pass it on to their customers’, he added. ‘We have 12 lorries on the road and because what we haul is a low value commodity, we can’t really demand too much extra money from our customers.
The fuel prices affect everybody who has a vehicle, and I really don’t know where it is all going to end.’
