Petrol price lottery leaves some Scots £253 poorer

SCOTLAND faces an extraordinary postcode lottery over petrol prices – with some drivers paying an extra £250 a year to fill up their cars.

Bizarrely, Scots motorists are paying both the highest and lowest forecourt prices in Britain.

By far the most expensive place to buy fuel in the UK is Shetland, where unleaded petrol costs £1.46 per litre and diesel is £1.48 per litre.

In contrast, Britain’s cheapest fuel is in the Grampian area, where a litre of unleaded costs just under £1.30 and a litre of diesel costs just over £1.34.

Based on an average car with an an average annual mileage of 12,000 miles, a family in Shetland would pay £2,279 a year – £253 more than a comparable family in Aberdeenshire.

The postcode lottery is revealed in a study analysing average costs across the UK by Santander Credit Cards. It comes as fuel prices have rocketed by 60 per cent since 2009, reaching a record in high in April this year.

One of the reasons for the huge cost differences is the remoteness of some areas, which make transporting fuel to the region more expensive.

But areas that do not have local supermarket forecourts also generally have higher fuel costs. According to the AA, prices tend to be lowest when there is an Asda filling station in the region.

The AA’s spokesman Luke Bosdet said: ‘Asda has nailed its colours to the mast as the cheapest fuel retailer so, when it has a store in a town, all the other petrol stations have to lower their charges in order to compete. Where there is no Asda nearby, prices remain higher.

‘The price differences are highly unfair and are guaranteed to anger drivers across the UK. This is a very dangerous situation and people who live in rural areas and have lower-paid jobs are at risk of not being able to make ends meet.’

‘The lack of transparency over oil and wholesale costs means it is hard to know how much of a mark-up there is on petrol and if garages are justified in the prices they are charging.’

Alan Mathewson of Santander Cards commented: ‘These seemingly small variations in fuel prices across the UK can actually have a significant impact on overall spending, particularly for drivers who really clock up the miles.

‘Shopping around for the cheapest isn’t always feasible or economical.’

High petrol and diesel prices were found in the Western Isles (142.6p & 144.7p); Ross-shire (138.1p & 142.1p); Caithness (137.6p & 144p), and Argyll (135.5p &142.1p).

Prices were lower in Midlothian (129.9p & 134.3p); Clackmannanshire (130.1p & 135.1p); Tayside (130.1p & 134.9p) and Borders (130.9p & 135.9p).