The price of diesel has exceeded £2 a litre at hundreds of Scottish forecourts, according to analysis by BBC Scotland News. Some of the highest prices can be found at garages in Scotland's islands, where fuel is 50p a litre more expensive than that sold at supermarkets in the central belt. Hauliers have described the cost to their businesses as "devastating" and say it now costs £250 a week more to fill up a lorry.
Motoring organisation the RAC said it expected the UK average price of diesel to hit a new record high over the weekend. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war has pushed up the cost of crude oil, leading to higher fuel and energy costs. The UK government said it continued to protect British people and business, and there would not be an increase in fuel duty this year.
Analysis by BBC Scotland News suggests there are at least 226 sites - stretching from the Borders to Shetland - where the price of a litre of diesel is greater than £2. Some of the highest prices are in island and rural areas, including 238.8p and 223p in the Hebrides and 209.0p and 208.9p in the Northern Isles. South Uist-based haulier Norman MacAskill said it cost 32p a litre to fill a lorry's tank when he started in the haulage business 40 years ago, but it was now £2.22.
"Anyone who is running a lorry is absolutely devastated when they get their fuel bill at the end of the month. There's no business on earth that can withstand that increase in costs," he said. MacAskill's haulage firm, N D MacAskill & Son, transports livestock around Inverness, Dingwall and Stirling but also further afield.
"We do a bit of livestock haulage from the north of Scotland down to the north of England," he said. "It's a devastating cost on a fuel run on that job," he said. MacAskill added: "This has been going on every year for the last 10 years now.
The cost of running a haulage business has just gone over the top. "There are dozens of haulage firms that have been established 50-60 years with big numbers of lorries going to the wall. When is this going to stop?" Dave Neil, who runs Sinclair Haulage which serves Sanday, Stronsay and Eday in Orkney, said his business was spending £400 a week more on diesel than it was before the summer.
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