Are we operating out of petrol stations?

Classic roadside petrol stations and pubs have a lot in frequent.

They both sell high-priced liquids whose price tag is inflated by the addition of whopping amounts of duty and value added tax that flows straight to the Inland Income.

They each face stiff competition from supermarkets, who undercut them on value, usually selling their product as a loss leader to get folks into the retailer.

And they are both decreasing in number at an alarming price, particularly in rural locations.

Broken Hertford

But not just rural regions. Take Hertford, county town of (you guessed it) Hertfordshire, situated just 21 miles north of Trafalgar Square. Significantly less than 10 years ago there were 2 petrol stations inside a 5-iron of the town hall. Now there are none.

And they’ve not even been replaced by supermarket forecourts. The town may possibly be ‘blessed’ with a Sainsbury and a Tesco (along with a Waitrose and M&S – we like our groceries in Hertford) but neither of them has the area nor the inclination to begin promoting fuel.

So if you reside in Hertford and want to refuel your automobile, you’ve got to head out to a mad-busy service station 3 miles away on the A10, or drive to an adjacent town such as Welwyn or Stevenage.

Woe betide you the subsequent morning if you drive property on fumes a single night.

Closing time

British pubs are closing at a shocking rate – as several as 30 a week, according to some reports.

Thankfully, this blight has yet to afflict Hertford, but that’s possibly only due to the fact most of the nearby boozers are tied to the town’s brewery, McMullen.

As for petrol stations – nationwide, independent petrol retailers are closing at the rate of 250 a year according to the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA). The difficulty is at its worst in Wales, Scotland, East Anglia and England’s West Country.

Not working at the automobile wash

The circumstance is getting exacerbated by the loss of revenue from car-wash facilities.

It appears we’re no longer willing to get tokens for a single of those (frankly, a bit scary) machines when we can pay a gang of strapping young lads down the road to do the job for us.

But it’s the supermarkets which remain the principal target of PRA’s wrath. The trade body reckons a standard supermarket fuel outlet sells 11.3 million litres of fuel a year, whereas an independent retailer sells 2.1 million litres a year.

It says: “This figure equates to each hypermarket draining the whole volume of 5 independent sites out of a regional region, resulting in a loss of jobs (an typical independent forecourt gives up to 8 portion and full time jobs), a loss of local facilities and decreased fuel resilience in the event of a crisis, such as the panic getting noticed in March 2012.”

To address the problem, the PRA wants regional and national government to limit the quantity of new supermarket forecourt openings by means of the organizing application method.

Market place forces

I should confess to a lingering affection for non-supermarket petrol outlets. I even visited a single in Norfolk not too long ago where they come out of the office and fill your car up for you.

Exact same goes with classic British pubs. Ask not for whom the bell tolls at closing time, and all that.

But probably 4 occasions out of 5 I fill up the automobile at a supermarket. And I don’t get to the pub half as often as I would like. So I’m performing little if something to arrest the deep changes taking place in these sectors.

Perhaps market place forces are irresistible, and pubs and local garages are not immovable objects. Undoubtedly looks that way.

We can only hope that when they’re all gone, the supermarkets don’t use the reduction in competitors to bump up the rates they discount at the moment.

But it would only serve us appropriate if they did.

What do you reckon? Ought to some thing be completed to save our independent petrol retailers?

Are we operating out of petrol stations?