Will it be supermarkets or Tories who finish us fuel dealerships off?
Published at 11:06, Thursday, 08 March 2012
SIR – I have managed the Longmile Filling Station (Hills) at Lillyhall for the last 20 years. This is a dealership which uses BP fuel.
I have been and loaded the tankers along with the driver at their terminal in Dalston. I have witnessed each type of fuel compartment being filled, this includes a full quality additive which makes your vehicle run as it should to give maximum miles per gallon. This is full specification fuel we are talking about.
On my computer at work I receive a PLATS oil price weekly, from this we have to price the polesign in relation to the cost price. The current week in question we have an overall margin of 1.2 p per litre, this is one and a fifth pence per litre, woefully low.
Supermarkets are knocking money off for fun. It’s one this week, one last week and will be one next week. 15p per litre off this week yet we only have 1p per litre margin available, so how is it done? Well if some of our readers don’t know I’m not telling them, work it out! In 20 years I have been involved in this business I have seen lots of filling stations pull the shutters down, butchers shops and corner shops close and farmers stop farming due to poor margins.
I am all for lower priced fuel but let’s be fair and honest: we need to trade on an even keel. What needs to be done is that the clowns in office cut the tax and duty now, not next year when more wagon drivers have retired, do it now. Fuel is a chain to other things, it has a knock on effect for the movement of all goods in the country.
So come on you two clowns in office – Cameron and Osborne – shape yourselves and shape the supermarkets to play fair. I was talking to an American on Saturday gone, who filled up at our site, £112 in his 4x4 Shogun. Mortified he was. “I don’t know how you Brits put up with it” he said. I know why, the country has no backbone. Blockades can bring this island to standstill. Unity is strength.
Steven TREMBATH
BP Longmile Garage Manager
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk
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