FOR the last year, drivers have had to face ever increasing prices at the petrol pumps.
And the hikes which have seen prices climb to between 125.9 and 128.9 pence per litre for unleaded and 129.9 and 133.9 pence a litre for diesel are not over yet.
Increases in fuel duty and VAT have seen prices rise swiftly since the New Year. Add to that a rise in the price of crude oil bringing it within less than two dollars a barrel of the record $100 dollar high of two years ago and it is little wonder that prices at the pumps are beginning to hurt.
The motoring organisations, hauliers and fuel retailers have all been queuing up to complain about what appears to be a relentless rise in fuel prices.
It is three years since lorry drivers staged go-slows on the motorways and picketed oil refineries in a bid to turn back what appeared to many to be a runaway juggernaut in terms of rising prices. But the protests could soon be back.
The fuel industry wants the Government to scrap the planned fuel duty increase in April. But the complaint is that no-one is listening.
Since the price of fuel underpins our economy, affecting everything from delivery of goods and services to whether families can afford to use their cars for the kind of entertainment which raises much needed revenue, perhaps someone should listen.
We hear much about the fragility of recovery, about how our economy is edging its way out of trouble. Would not action on fuel prices stave off the kind of inflation that the economy just doesn’t need right now?
