After a very brief respite the price of petrol has reached a new record high average price yesterday. The AA (Automobile Association) released figures yesterday that revealed the new high average petrol price of 142.8 pence per litre. Diesel is just short of the record high price with an average price of 147.88p a litre. In Devon it is as much as 149.9p per litre.
The AA’s statistics show that at the moment the most expensive petrol is in Northern Ireland, with an average price of 143.9p per litre. Northern Ireland is also where the most expensive diesel is at an average price of 148.2p per litre.
The cheapest petrol is found in Scotland with an average price of 142.2p per litre while the cheapest diesel can be found in Yorkshire and Humberside at an average price of 147.3p.Drivers could need some pretty hefty short term loans to fill up their cars with fuel at the moment, especially if panic re-emerges after a breakdown in talks with tanker drivers in the UK as they rejected the latest proposals to avoid strikes.
Since the beginning of 2012 petrol prices have risen an average of 10.23p per litre while diesel has climbed 7.32p. The rise in fuel costs are hitting the average family very hard, costing in some cases extra money that people just don’t have due to the huge rises in cost of living.
Edmund King who is president of the AA said: ‘Panic buying in March forced some cash-strapped families to spend far more on fuel than their budgets could bear. Filling up a 50-litre tank costs more than some families spend on food each week.’