Why does the cost of petrol depend where you live in Kent?

With the rising cost of living everyone has to watch the pennies.

A large component of many people's weekly expenditure is paying for fuel for the car.

And while it is good news petrol prices have come down from the record highs of July, still it turns out that what you pay depends very much on where you live.

We carried out a spot check on petrol prices across Kent.

We took the price of E10 unleaded at the five cheapest garages within a five-mile radius of 10 town centres and calculated the average cost.

Again we emphasis the figures were from the five cheapest garages – it would have been easy to find a garage where you could pay more.

What we discovered was there was a difference of 12.4p a litre between the average price paid in the cheapest area – Medway – and that paid in the most expensive, Canterbury.

With the average car having a fuel tank capacity of 60 litres, that means a difference in cost of £7.44 between filling up in the cathedral city as compared with the Medway Towns.

And there was also a clear east/west divide, with those in the east of the county facing higher bills.

The explanation lies partly with the forecourt supplier.

In those communities fortunate enough to live within striking difference of the CostCo garage at West Thurrock, drivers could achieve a significant saving on the normal price with unleaded at 147.9p

But even within brands, there could be significant differences in price between locations, with for example the Medway Asda selling at unleaded at 155.7p while the Canterbury Asda was priced at 168.7.

Again the price at Morrisons varied from 153.7p in Medway to 167.7p in Canterbury.

A spokesman for Asda said: "We always try to be the cheapest in the area, so the price may vary depending on what our competitors are offering.

"But there are other factors too, such as the location of the store and the difficulty or otherwise of making a delivery."

A spokesman for Morrisons said: "In the UK petrol prices vary from town to town and even neighbourhood to neighbourhood and we will always strive to be competitive in each local area."

He said: "Occasionally this can mean price differences between different areas open up.

"We continually review our prices and will look to reduce this difference as soon as we can."

Howard Cox, founder of the FairFuelUK which campaigns for a fair deal for motorists, said: "We have long been calling for consumer pump pricing protection.

"When oil prices rise and fall, millions of drivers have absolutely no idea what subsequently, they will pay at the pumps each time they fill up their vehicles, and it is never ever the same price!

"There is no consistency or fairness across neighbourhoods, logic or clarity to the way pump prices are calculated."

Mr Cox said: "Regional variations are based on local competition, but invariably end up like a cartel of what prices garages can get away with.

"The more rural the forecourt’s location, means the higher its average pump prices will be.

"There is no justification for so much variation in prices.

"Shockingly, in the last 12 months retail margins have more than doubled.

"But it’s not the small local independent retailers taking advantage, it is the wholesalers, branded oil companies, supermarkets and city speculators gambling on oil price volatility, who are filling their already fat wallets even more."

'Pump prices are 20p higher than they need be'

Mr Cox said: "Current pump prices are 20p higher than necessary, because these faceless big fuel supply businesses continue to rein in fixing prices on an essential resource totally unconstrained.

"The reality is that motorists are now paying £18 per average family car tank more than last year and billions of falls in the wholesale price have not been passed onto hard-pressed motorists at the pumps.

"This is bad for the economy, bad for inflation, bad for business and bad for jobs.

"Sadly, the Government’s effort to work with the fuel industry so that pump prices are competitive, and market driven, ensuring consumers benefit from lower prices, is patently not working."

Mr Cox called for the establishment of a new PumpWatch body, similar to consumer watchdogs Ofgem, Ofcom and Ofwat, to scrutinise the fuel industry and hold it to account.