Haulage bosses struggle with £20,000 cost to fuel a lorry per year

Soaring fuel costs have put the haulage business in disaster with the cost of operating one lorry up £20,000 on final year, a freight boss has stated.

Lesley O’Brien, director of Freight Link Europe, stated “pretty much everything you buy comes on the back of a truck” so clients have been paying extra.

Her feedback come because the RAC stated it now prices £98 to fill the typical automobile with petrol and £101.86 with diesel.

The motoring group has known as for “radical government intervention”.

Latest figures from the RAC present the typical cost of a litre of petrol rose from 177.88p on Sunday to 178.50p on Monday – a rise of 0.6p in 24 hours.

Over the identical interval, the typical diesel worth rose from 185.01p to 185.20p.

RAC fuel spokesperson Simon Williams stated: “Drivers want to brace themselves for common fuel costs rocketing to £2 a litre which might imply a fill-up would rise to an unbelievable £110.

“We strongly urge the government to take drastic action to help soften the impact for drivers from these never-before-seen pump prices.”
Motorists have been hit by document pump costs since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a rise within the cost of oil due to provide fears.

In March, the federal government lower fuel obligation by 5p a litre. It stated this may save a automobile driver on common £100 a year, a van driver £200 and hauliers £1,500.

In some circumstances, haulage companies and different transport companies can reclaim 100% of VAT on fuel paid for enterprise functions through HMRC.

Ms O’Brien advised the BBC’s Today programme: “This definitely is a disaster as we’ve seen fuel costs escalate during the last year by 50% and no sight of a cease, so we completely as an business want to carry on prime of this.

“As a country we need to understand we need to support our transport industry which is the infrastructure of the whole economy,” she stated.

Ms O’Brien stated fuel was a third of her enterprise’ operating prices. This time final year, it might cost about £41,000 a year in fuel for a mean articulated lorry at her firm, however with costs hovering it now prices greater than £61,000 a year.

She defined that her firm added a fuel surcharge to its payments, to cowl fluctuating costs.

“But never before has it been so high,” she stated. “As an example, to run one of my artic vehicles is now costing me £20,000 more per year than in did last year.”