This Is Guernsey

By Aimee Le Cocq

FREE DELIVERY will become a thing of the past with the rise in the cost of diesel, according to a local haulage company.

It is expected that by the weekend several local garages will have put up their price of a litre of diesel to £1.

Steve Champion Smith, Guernsey director of Huelin Renouf, said companies that offer a free-delivery service would have no compensation against the price increase. ‘We are monitoring the cost of diesel per vehicle, as we do all the time,’ he said.

‘By the year-end we will be able to review the damage it’s doing. Only three of our vehicles use red [duty free] diesel, which is of some financial benefit. But the majority of our vehicles do not.’

Mr Champion Smith said that in January 2007 the company estimated that costs would go up by £11,000, which he believed would be a lot more by the year-end. He said that they would have to pass this on to customers and that haulage costs across the island would rise.

‘People who offer free delivery are going to be hit the worst as they haven’t got anything to offset it against.’

Secretary of the Guernsey Taxi Owners’ Federation Mike Mauger said the increase had been a nightmare for drivers but that it was something there was no control over with such an unsustainable product.

‘Obviously, we use a large amount of fuel, based on the number of miles per year. This is 36,000, which is a substantial amount. Fuel counts for 20% of our costs. So if you imagine this 20% going up by 20% it will have a huge effect on our business. Personally, I’m paying 39p per litre more than I was on 31 December.’

Mr Mauger said drivers were mindful about passing on the costs to passengers but that it couldn’t carry on absorbing the increase.

‘It’s a big worry for taxi drivers,’ he said.

Several garages had already felt the pinch, but others said they did not expect diesel to rise to £1 until the end of the year.

‘We are still 90.9p a litre and I can’t see it going up anywhere near a pound,’ said Mark Finn, company director of Braye Road Garage.

‘Shell have told us that it won’t be going up that high. It will probably go up by a penny or something like that. As far as I know we are the cheapest on the island.

‘It’s going to hurt the business people who use cars. We’ve had a lot of customers telling us they are paying a lot more than when we had motor tax as well.’

Steve Browning, who works at Maryland Garage, said, ‘We’ve had a few people coming in complaining that the price at L’Aumone Garage has gone up to 99.9p. But people still need it so they will continue buying it.’