Price increases happen to everything we buy, but we tend to notice it more when it’s at the pump and maybe that’s because we visit them often. When we do, the price change is noticed in every drop that goes into the car and what we pay at the till.

But in some parts of the UK, prices are more expensive because of unique factors at play. We’re led to believe that rural areas get hit hardest – something about being less cost-efficient to transport it there and lack of competition, and while the figures do tend to bear that out, there are some discrepancies in certain towns and we wanted to look at this.

PetrolPrices has conducted an analysis of average fuel prices across thousands of places in the UK using the modal average, meaning recorded instances of real prices. When doing this we have also made sure that a location must have at least two petrol stations in the search for it to qualify, this is to ensure that remote, rural locations are not included. The tables below for Unleaded and Diesel illustrate those places which are most expensive in the UK based on real pricing this month so far.

Most expensive petrol by town from January 2018 to April 2018

*Average price calculated based on modal statistics

Most expensive diesel by town from January 2018 to April 2018

*Average price calculated based on modal statistics

These averages are based on modal statistics from the recorded prices. The modal average defines the most frequent price to appear within the data range.

Who are the worst and why

Woolacombe in Devon is the most expensive place for Unleaded in the UK and 4th most expensive for Diesel. Woolacombe has very few service stations, no supermarket competition and is remote relative to the nearest town Barnstaple, which is 15 miles away. The two stations located there take advantage of this isolation, and this is one example of high prices due to being in a remote holiday location, such as Freshwater on the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man.

Markfield in Leicestershire has topped the poll for the most expensive place for Diesel in the UK for some time and is 3rd most expensive for Unleaded. The reason for this it has a junction of the M1 there connecting to the A50, so the four stations there have their prices artificially high to try to take advantage of drivers coming off or going onto the M1, where higher prices are expected at motorway services. Gretna, Lockerbie, Willington and Lymm are all similar in that they are all places which exist close to major roads, often where motorways intersect with A roads.

Motorway service station prices are very high because drivers are stuck in a captive market, stations push up their prices, their argument is the costs are higher, which is something the government wants to investigate with a official inquiry.

While being in a beautiful part of the UK, Acharacle is a remote place in the Highlands and regularly is in the top most expensive places for fuel. Tighnabruaich, Isle of Benbecula, Isle of Arran and Isle of Unst all fall in to the same category of fuel prices being high and in the top 10 due to the remoteness of their locations. That said locals in the Shetland and Orkney Islands do receive a subsidy which means that they can claim back a discount on fuel costs of up to 20% provided by the local council.

How to locate the cheapest fuel

We’ve listed the most expensive places to buy fuel, but if you live in those areas, there’s no escaping the fact that you’re paying higher prices, and travelling around the area to find the cheapest fuel is more important than ever, where competition is healthier, and therefore prices are lower.

As a general rule of thumb always look to see where the supermarkets are. ASDA and Morrisons are consistently in the top 100 cheapest locations in the UK. Sainsburys and Tesco also have low prices in the South as well. Where there are many petrol stations close together, this usually makes prices lower too. If you live an affluent area, drive to a less affluent area, generally, prices are a few pence a litre lower.

Moreover, if you haven’t already yet done so, use the PetrolPrices service – it will tell you exactly where to find the cheapest fuel in your area or nearby. You should also ensure that your car is working to the best of its abilities – tyre pressures can influence your MPG more than you realise. Around 90% of energy loss through rolling-resistance is down to the repeated changes in shape as the tyre rolls. Therefore, a correctly inflated tyre has a much lower rolling resistance. Remove anything that causes drag on the car and keep the windows closed and if possible air con down to a minimum.

Keeping fuel usage at a minimum is the best way of not giving the government nigh on 80% in tax, but what methods do you use to do that?

What do you think of these prices? Have you paid more than 137.0p per litre? Or is that the extreme that few of us never experience?  Let us know in the comments below.

Despite the Government’s relentless efforts to dissuade people from driving diesel cars, new statistics from the Department for Transport have shown that their attempts have failed miserably as there are now more diesel cars on the road than ever before.

The data shows that a record number of diesel cars were registered at the end of 2017 with a total of 12.4 million of them being driven on UK roads, which is 308,000 more than in 2016. This suggests that people are not scared by the forthcoming vehicle excise and MOT changes, the toxicity charges in London and are just not ready to give their diesel cars up because the benefits of keeping one outweighs the incentives to switch to lower emitting petrol, hybrid or electric cars.

A record number of diesel cars

The statistics show that 2 out of every 5 of the 31.2 million cars that are on the UK’s roads are diesel cars, which is up 0.5% on the previous year despite there being a 16% drop in new registrations.

This is certainly not a stat that the Government were hoping for as they have been desperately trying to reduce the number of diesel vehicles on the roads over the last 12 months by encouraging people to opt for hybrid or electric models instead.

However, just 45,400 new electric cars were on the road in the last quarter of 2017 which means that the UK roads are home to 272 diesels for every one electric vehicle, which is barely an increase on the number recorded the previous year.

Petrol ownership has also been decreasing, with numbers falling since 2004. The end of 2017 saw 0.3% less petrol cars on the roads than there were at the end of 2016, with 59% of the total number of cars being driven running on petrol.

Why the Government’s plan backfired

For months the Government have been implementing plans to encourage people to buy cleaner cars, such as the new Vehicle Excise Duty making low carbon dioxide producing vehicles more expensive to tax, and surcharges being introduced for driving and parking high polluting cars in Central London.

With so much effort being put into eliminating diesel cars by the Government it may be surprising that there are actually more diesels on the roads now than ever before, but there a number of potential reasons for why this has happened.

Jack Cousens, Head of Roads Policy for the AA, stated that changes made to Vehicle Excise Duty by the Government were counter-intuitive as they have just ended up forcing higher tax bills onto those who would have preferred to buy a cleaner car. Instead, people are keeping hold of their older, more polluting cars which is the complete opposite of what the Government was aiming for.

Another possible deterrent for motorists is that they want to avoid the surcharges that they would face if they bought a new model, so they would prefer to stick with the vehicle that they currently drive.

Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, summed the situation up well by saying that the Government cannot eliminate diesel cars as quickly as they wanted to due to the fact that they are entrenched in our society, and that it will take years to significantly decrease the number of diesel vehicles on the UK’s roads.

What happens next?

It is argued by some motoring experts that the slump in new diesel car buying is only the beginning of the downward trend in diesel car use and that a small increase in diesel car use before the decline is logical, given the fact that more drivers are keeping hold of existing cars rather than trading up to a new one.

The Government are expected to launch a raft of new measures soon with their national Cleaner Air Initiative, which is likely to contain more limits and taxes on the use of older, high polluting vehicles to get them out of major cities. The measures implemented will start to have an effect and it will fall in 2018. Evidence of this is Jaguar Land Rover’s recent decision to lay off 1,000 staff, which they say is because of the fall in demand for new diesel cars.

Do you currently own a diesel car that you are keen to keep hold of and if so why are keeping it? Are you considering trading in your diesel car for a hybrid or electric alternative? Let us know in the comments below.