Petrol: are you getting a good deal?

Drivers stung by high fuel prices have cut their petrol use by 15 per cent since the credit crunch hit in 2008, new figures from the AA show.

Petrol prices in the first six months of the year averaged 133.13p a litre, up 16.45p on the same period last year and 24.13p higher than in 2008. In May this year, an AA survey showed that 76 per cent of its members were cutting back on car use, other spending, or both.

Channel 4 News has mapped where the cheapest, and most expensive, petrol stations in the UK are before. With the help of PetrolPrices.com, we did it just before the Budget, on 23 March.

Then, the top price was 146.9p.

Two weeks later, at the beginning of April, we did again – and the top price had risen by almost 1.5p, to 148.3p. This wiped out Chancellor George Osborne’s giveaway to motorists of cutting fuel duty by 1p a litre in the Budget.

Since then, prices have risen even further. The most expensive petrol in the UK now can be found in Sutherland, in the north of Scotland, where hard-pressed motorists are forced to part with 151.0p for a litre of unleaded.

But it’s not all bad news. In our previous maps, we have also been able to pick out the five cheapest venues for petrol in Britain. This time around, we haven’t been able to do this – that’s because around 100 stations are all charging the same lowest price, of 129.9p.

This could be because one chain of supermarkets has cut prices across its petrol stations in a price war with other vendors. Whatever the reason, it is likely to get motorists revving their engines.