Consumer pressure forces prices down at Audlem's nearest petrol station

Since the supermarkets started selling petrol, thousands of petrol stations have closed down, including Audlem's two garages. With the competition removed, the prices have, you've guessed it, gone up. But a consumer boycott of Morrisons in Market Drayton, now the nearest source of petrol to Audlem, has forced the company to lower its price of unleaded petrol.

The price was 91.9p a litre last week, 4p more than in the company's Shrewsbury and Newcastle-under-Lyme stores. At those prices, it's now costing Audlem residents on average about £2 just to get to and from the petrol station. Complaints from angry residents has forced the price down by 1p a litre, still leaving a 3p differential. The company's spokesman admitted that local protests forced them to act. Perhaps he could have defended the very small reduction with the obvious phrase: "Every little helps." But, then again, maybe those three particular words are never uttered in that order at Morrisons!

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