A Hull fuel price gap of more than 11p a litre between forecourts less than three miles apart has thrown a spotlight on a national compliance problem: thousands of petrol stations are not fulfilling their legal duty to report live prices, leaving drivers unable to make informed choices at the pump.
A BBC snapshot taken on Tuesday found that filling a 50-litre tank cost £78.45 at one Hull garage and £72.80 at another, a saving of £5.65 on a single fill. Wayne Parsons, a taxi driver covering 200 miles a day, was filling up at a Gulf station at Northpoint Shopping Centre, Bransholme, where unleaded was priced at 146.7p per litre, more than 5p cheaper than at a station a mile away. ‘It’s still too high, still far too high, especially when you need it for your living,’ he said.
Christine Colville told the BBC the cost had curtailed her social life, cutting out trips to Sheffield’s Meadowhall shopping centre so she could save fuel for commuting. Fellow motorist Paul Brown said he already uses online price trackers to pick his forecourt. ‘We do come here because it is the cheapest in the area,’ he said.
Fuel Finder data shows the Hull fuel price gap is part of a national pattern
The government’s Fuel Finder tool was created precisely to prevent this kind of information asymmetry. Its origins lie in a 2023 road fuel market study by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which concluded that competition in the UK road fuel market was not working as well as it should be and recommended a statutory open-data scheme giving drivers access to live forecourt prices. When it launched, ministers forecast average savings of £40 a year per car-owning household.
But the data feeding that tool is compromised. Press Association analysis found that of the 7,765 open forecourts for which Fuel Finder data is available, 1,751 had last submitted a petrol price change more than a week ago as of Monday, including 96 that had not supplied an update in at least a month. Supermarkets, often assumed to be model operators, are not immune: of the 2,229 supermarket filling stations in the dataset, 410 had not uploaded a price change in at least a week.
All UK forecourts have been legally required to report price changes within half an hour since 2 February. The CMA’s latest road fuel monitoring report confirms that its first enforcement step was to send warning letters to hundreds of non-compliant operators. Forecourt Trader reports those letters targeted operators who had yet to register with the scheme at all, not merely those slow to update prices. Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed on Tuesday that hundreds of warning letters had already been issued.
Simon Williams, the RAC’s head of policy, acknowledged the problems while urging drivers to keep using comparison tools regardless. ‘There have been a few issues with the data, some retailers haven’t been updating as much as they should have been. But we would really strongly advise people to take advantage of them,’ he said. The Petrol Retailers Association noted that smaller rural sites receiving fuel deliveries only about once a month may account for some of the infrequent updates.
Pump prices still elevated despite falling oil
The backdrop makes price transparency more urgent, not less. Press Association analysis cited in the original BBC report puts average UK petrol prices still around 19p per litre above pre-conflict levels, even though oil prices have returned to where they were before the Middle East fighting began.
The trajectory has been volatile. The Independent reported that the average petrol price hit 144.16p per litre on 23 March, up from 131.71p before US strikes on Iran on 28 February. According to the BBC and the RAC, petrol peaked at 159.53p a litre on 28 May, with diesel’s highest average reaching 191.54p on 15 April. A US-Iran framework deal then triggered the fastest monthly fall in diesel prices since 2000, with costs dropping 17p a litre in June alone.
I’d argue the compliance failure is the more corrosive problem here. A scheme that lets 1,751 forecourts go a week or more without an update is not a functioning price transparency tool; it is a directory with gaps. The CMA has sent warning letters. If prosecutions do not follow for persistent non-compliance, the legal obligation introduced in February will prove to be little more than a suggestion. The next CMA monitoring report will show whether the regulator is prepared to move from letters to consequences.
