Shropshire fuel station owners hit by cost cut

Owners of petrol stations across the county are being hit in the pocket by Chancellor George Osborne's decision to enforce a 1p drop in fuel duty, it has been claimed.

The Chancellor's announcement on Wednesday that fuel duty would drop at 6pm the same night as part of the Budget has cost forecourt owners thousands of pounds as they had already bought fuel stocks at higher rates.

Paul Delves, managing director at Harry Tuffins which has shops across south Shropshire and Powys, said the announcement had cost his firm £10,000 over the week.

And Justin Smart, general manager at Stans Superstore in St Martins, near Oswestry, said his firm had also taken a hit due to the short notice of the fuel duty drop.

Throughout the county prices were 1p lower on forecourts as the cut in duty took effect, although Mr Delves came in for criticism after fuel prices at forecourts at his firm's Craven Arms store failed to go down until 9am on Thursday morning - 15 hours after the drop in duty came into effect.

Mr Delves said: "We bought all our stock in last week with the duty on, but we certainly aren't going to get a penny a litre back from the Chancellor. It shifts the blame on to us if we don't drop prices - and it has cost us £10,000 this week.

"The reason our fuel didn't go down at 6pm on Wednesday was due to an administration issue - I wasn't working and couldn't get it sorted. But we did reduce our prices on Thursday morning."

Mr Smart said they had dropped their prices to 130.9p for a litre of unleaded and 137.9p for diesel at 6pm on Wednesday and said they had stayed at those prices since.

Ali Shah, manager of the Shell garage in Ketley, Telford, said fuel prices had dropped by 1p to 129.9p for unleaded petrol and 136.9p for diesel at 6pm on Wednesday. But he added the prices had gone up by 1p per litre at 11am that morning.

Neil Bowyer, duty manager at Asda in Old Potts Way in Shrewsbury, said prices had gone down by 1p per litre at 6pm on Wednesday in line with the fuel duty cut, while a spokesman for Tesco at Wrekin Retail Park in Telford said prices had also gone down."

By Peter Kitchen