The boss of an Island haulage firm is shelling out nearly £10,000 more per month for fuel compared with this time last year.

Mike Presneill, managing director of Sheerness firm Presneill Tipper Contractors, says that the crippling cost of fuel means his business is just “treading water”.

The 1p per litre fuel duty cut in the March Budget has done little to ease the long-term impact of still increasing prices at the pumps.

Mr Presneill runs 14 vehicles, but he is now paying just over 12p more per litre than in June 2010 and as his firm uses 80,000 litres a month – it means his monthly fuel bill has gone up by £9,800.

But it is not just the high prices that are stifling the industry, says Mr Presneill, but competition from foreign haulage firms which pay around 25p less a litre for their fuel.

He also said there are plans to lift “cabotage” in 2012. Cabotage is the transport of goods between two points in the same country, and Mr Presneill says that at the moment foreign hauliers can only do three journeys a week in the UK, but once it is lifted under EU law, they will be able to operate freely.

Mr Presneill said: “Every week two or three haulage companies in the UK are going down the pan – and those are just the ones you read about in the trade magazines, there are probably many more that we don’t hear about.”

He said that if the government does not act to support UK firms the industry will be destroyed altogether and it will be run by foreign firms.

He said: “The public needs to know about what is happening to their haulage industry and what needs to be done to help it, because I don’t think the government wants to save UK Haulage plc.”

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