BRITAIN’S most expensive petrol stations have been revealed, with drivers paying £1,200 more to fill up compared to the cheapest.
Some Brits are paying up to £1.77 per litre, well over the £1.50 national average, in what the RAC is calling a “postcode lottery“.
Research from comparison site PetrolPrices found that there was a vast difference in rates at forecourts in different parts of the UK.
Strensham Services, just off the M5 in Worcestershire, came out as the priciest, with the average 55-litre car costing £97.46 to fill up on average.
That works out at a whopping £1.77 per litre.
If you compare that to George Harrison Services in Whitby, where a full tank is just £74.58, it means drivers at Strensham would pay an extra £1,200 a year to fuel up.
Stafford Services on the M6 followed in second most expensive at £95.81, while the popular Telford Services on the M54 rounded out the top three at £95.48.
The latter was tied with the M11’s Birchange Green, with Cherwell Valley on the M40 just behind in fifth.
At the other end, stations like Blakenhall and Witton Road all clocked in under the £75 mark.
That puts a litre of petrol at just £1.36 in these areas.
It comes as the Competition and Markets Authority investigates potential price inflation on UK forecourts.
Motoring organisations have accused operators of keeping prices well above wholesale rates and being slow to follow declines in the price of oil to widen their profit margins.
Simon Williams, the RAC’s head of road policy, told The Telegraph: “We continue to call on retailers to play fair with drivers as our analysis of data provided by the Competition and Markets Authority consistently shows that the individual retailers will charge wildly different prices entirely dependent on location.
“We badly need to bring an end to this postcode lottery in fuel retailing.
“If retailers in Northern Ireland can sell petrol for 4.5p cheaper than the UK average of 145p and diesel for 8p cheaper than the average of 150.4p, it can surely be done on this side of the Irish sea too.”
Northern Ireland sees the cheapest average prices for any of the UK’s four nations.
Luke Bodset from the AA added that there is “no doubt” that this was helped by the introduction of a price comparison tool for drivers to see which stations near them had the best rates in real-time.
A similar measure is set to be introduced in Britain under the PumpWatch regulator, with petrol bosses given just 30 minutes to change their rates in line with the average.
£ per 55-litre tank
