Diesel prices exceed £2 a litre at forecourts across Scotland

Analysis by BBC Scotland News suggests there are at least 226 sites – stretching from the Borders to Shetland – where the price of a litre of diesel is greater than £2.

Some of the highest prices are in island and rural areas, including 238.8p and 223p in the Hebrides and 209.0p and 208.9p in the Northern Isles.

South Uist-based haulier Norman MacAskill said it cost 32p a litre to fill a lorry’s tank when he started in the haulage business 40 years ago, but it was now £2.22.

“Anyone who is running a lorry is absolutely devastated when they get their fuel bill at the end of the month. There’s no business on earth that can withstand that increase in costs,” he said.

MacAskill’s haulage firm, N D MacAskill & Son, transports livestock around Inverness, Dingwall and Stirling but also further afield.

“We do a bit of livestock haulage from the north of Scotland down to the north of England,” he said.

“It’s a devastating cost on a fuel run on that job,” he said.

MacAskill added: “This has been going on every year for the last 10 years now. The cost of running a haulage business has just gone over the top.

“There are dozens of haulage firms that have been established 50-60 years with big numbers of lorries going to the wall. When is this going to stop?”

Dave Neil, who runs Sinclair Haulage which serves Sanday, Stronsay and Eday in Orkney, said his business was spending £400 a week more on diesel than it was before the summer.

“It’s a challenging situation,” he said.

Neil said he was forced to add an extra fee to his customers’ costs.

“It’s probably the fairest way,” he said. “When the fuel price drops we can take that surcharge away.”