Motorists cut car use as fuel prices remain high

HIGH fuel prices are continuing to force drivers to use their cars less, according to an AA/Populus survey released in the lead-up to today’s Autumn Statement.

The poll of 21,587 AA members found 45 per cent are cutting down on car usage and 28 per cent are slashing family or personal budgets to compensate.

Semi or unskilled workers and pensioners are cutting back most on motoring, with 53 per cent using their cars less.

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Skilled worker families are hacking deepest into other areas of their spending to afford fuel and stay on the road, according to the poll but, even so, 42 per cent of the better-off AA members are using their cars less.

Drivers with the gloomiest outlook on pump prices are in Wales, where 67 per cent are spending less or driving less because of fuel costs.

AA president Edmund King said: “We were stunned when, despite a significant supermarket price war and big fuel price drop, UK petrol consumption in October failed to recover.

Weather wasn’t a factor and the Grangemouth dispute didn’t create panic buying.

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“However, power companies were announcing severe price hikes and consumer sensitivity to all forms of energy price hikes appears to have been exposed – like the raw nerve of an unrelenting toothache.”

Mr King said the AA had found that its members in Wales, Northern Ireland and other rural areas were often continuing to pay 5p a litre more for supermarket petrol – barely challenged by other local retailers – than down the road in other towns with real competition.

In Market Drayton in Shropshire, a town of 12,000 people, supermarket petrol was 6p a litre or £3 a small tank dearer than in bigger towns, the AA said.

Mr King added: “The Government has committed to a fuel duty freeze and is trying to extend the 5p rural fuel duty rebate, which is helpful.

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“However, if the Treasury is going to make concessions to the fuel retail industry, it needs to tie them to fairer pricing.

“That can be achieved via wholesale price transparency.

“Despite falls in the average price, inflated prices on some forecourts mean lower sales, hence fewer customers.”

Ministers have announced plans to offer fuel duty discounts of up to 5p to motorists in Hawes in Wensleydale.

But the scheme for 10 rural communities in Scotland and England faces a delays following complaints from others in the Highlands and Wales that they will miss out.

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Officials say it will not now be until next year before permission is sought from the European Commission to implement the discount.

The announcement was a major coup for the Yorkshire Post’s Give us a Fair deal campaign, which has been calling for a fuel discount for the region’s most remote areas.