Diesel tops £2 a litre at hundreds of Scottish forecourts

Diesel cost more than £2 a litre at at least 226 Scottish forecourts in a BBC Scotland News analysis published on 25 September and updated the next day. The finding matters to drivers and businesses that cannot easily avoid filling up: the BBC found some of the highest prices in island communities, while hauliers told it that weekly fuel bills had risen sharply.

The BBC’s count covered sites from the Borders to Shetland. It recorded diesel at 238.8p and 223p a litre at forecourts in the Hebrides, and at 209.0p and 208.9p in the Northern Isles. It said some island prices were as much as 50p a litre above prices at supermarkets in Scotland’s central belt. Those are prices observed in its analysis, not a promise of what drivers will pay at a pump today.

How Scottish prices compare

A separate snapshot gives a broader comparison. PreparedBritain’s reading of the government Fuel Finder feed on the morning of 24 September put average diesel at 199.1p a litre across 642 Scottish forecourts whose nation was recorded. Its UK average was 198.0p across 7,750 forecourts reporting a diesel price. A Scottish average just below £2 can therefore sit alongside individual Scottish sites charging well above it.

PreparedBritain counted 1,212 of those 7,750 UK forecourts, or 15.6%, charging at least £2 a litre. Its figures covered standard B7 diesel prices confirmed within the previous 14 days. It excluded 2,368 older prices and 16 listings it judged implausible. The organisation describes Fuel Finder as a statutory scheme under which forecourts must report a price change within 30 minutes; its published figures remain a dated snapshot because pump prices can change.

A UK record reported on 26 September

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said on 26 September that the UK average diesel price shown by Fuel Finder UK had reached 199.2p a litre. That exceeded the previous record of 199.09p, set on 25 June 2022. The unit was reporting a figure from Fuel Finder UK, not conducting a separate price survey; its statement does not fully specify the measurement time or calculation behind that average.

Earlier in the week, the RAC had reported a different point in the rise. Its 23 September figure was 197.31p a litre, 1.78p below the 2022 record. It said many individual forecourts were already charging more than the record average. The RAC put the cost of filling a 55-litre family car with diesel at £108.52 on that date, about £30 more than at the end of February.

Those figures answer different questions. The BBC identified Scottish sites above £2; PreparedBritain measured a 24 September feed snapshot; the RAC gave its 23 September UK average; and the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit reported a later UK record from Fuel Finder UK. Their dates and methods should be kept with the numbers when comparing them.

Costs for hauliers and communities

On South Uist, haulier Norman MacAskill told the BBC that filling his lorry cost £2.22 a litre. He recalled a price of 32p a litre when he entered haulage 40 years ago and described current fuel bills as devastating. His firm transports livestock within Scotland and to the north of England, making diesel a direct operating cost on those journeys.

Dave Neil, who runs Sinclair Haulage in Orkney, told the BBC his business was spending £400 more a week on diesel than before the summer. He said it had added a surcharge to customers’ bills, which it could remove if fuel prices fell. The Road Haulage Association separately told the BBC that fuel was costing operators roughly £250 extra per vehicle each week. Those figures describe different businesses and measures; neither is a national estimate for every operator.

The association called for an essential-user diesel rebate for coaches, lorries and vans and opposed planned fuel-duty rises. The UK government told the BBC it had extended the temporary 5p-a-litre fuel-duty cut until 31 December. It said diesel was 11p a litre cheaper until the end of the year than it would have been under plans inherited from the previous government.

The effects reach beyond freight. NFU Scotland told the BBC that fuel is a significant farm input and that higher prices feed into the cost of producing food. It said farmers working through harvest and other intensive autumn operations had little scope to reduce fuel use. New Start Highland, an Inverness charity that uses vans to collect and deliver donated furniture and other goods, said higher fuel costs affected its operations and the families it supports.

The latest price at any one forecourt may differ from these published figures. For drivers weighing where to fill up, the documented gap between supermarket, other local and motorway averages gives a reason to check a current local price before travelling. The wider effect of rising diesel costs on drivers has also featured in NewsJaws’ coverage of how the diesel crisis is affecting people across Britain.