A North East business director has called diesel hitting £2 a litre for the first time “crippling”, estimating that its increase has added £350,000 to the firm's fuel bill.
Peter Scott, a director of family-run Teesside firm Scott Bros, based at Haverton Hill, said the latest rise had hit its recycling, skip-hire, haulage and plant-hire operations hard.
RAC analysis on Friday, October 2, showed diesel had hit a record 200.01p a litre, putting the cost of filling an average family car at £110, about £32 more than before the conflict.
Mr Scott said businesses across the UK, including in the North East, were feeling the squeeze too.
He said: “The rise in diesel prices is crippling. We operate a fleet of around 50 trucks plus 50 vans, cars and plant equipment, and estimate the increase has added about £350,000 to our fuel bills compared with last year.
“We’ve been trading for more than 50 years and the past few months have been among the worst we’ve experienced. There are other inflationary pressures out there, but the price of diesel is by far the biggest factor.
Peter Scott, a director of family-run Teesside recycling business Scott Bros (Image: SCOTT BROS)
“When diesel first started going up, hauliers introduced fuel surcharges to cover the extra cost.
"But as work has become harder to come by, those surcharges have begun to disappear because everyone is competing for a dwindling amount of work.
"When the market is this competitive, you simply can’t pass all of the increase on to customers, so we’re having to absorb more of it ourselves."
Petrol prices have also risen, with unleaded averaging 174.71p a litre, about 42p more than before the conflict.
Filling an average petrol car now costs £96.
Mr Scott added: “We were already hit hard in 2022 when the rules on red diesel, which attracted a much lower rate of fuel duty, changed.
"It meant we could no longer use it across our operations, and we had to switch to fully taxed fuel. At the time, we estimated this added around £1.5m a year to our costs.
“Now we’re being battered again by another huge increase in fuel costs. You can only absorb these increases for so long.
“Almost everything people buy has spent some part of its journey on the back of a lorry or van. If it costs more to move goods around the country, ultimately those costs will hit the wider economy.”
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The RAC said drivers ‘will be looking to the Government’ to help with rising fuel bills by ‘lowering fuel duty further or reducing VAT in October’s budget’.
RAC head of policy Simon Williams said it was a threshold ‘no-one wanted to cross’.
“This will be very challenging for households and companies that drive a lot of miles, from commuters, haulage and delivery firms, businesses with large fleets all the way through to sole traders," he said.
"In a cruel twist, it’s diesel vehicles, which were once considered the most cost-effective option for lengthy journeys, that are now burning a hole in people’s pockets.”