'Increase rates'
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By Karen Mites
THE FIRST dery price rise of the year has prompted the Road Haulage Association to call for hauliers to increase their rates.
Earlier this week, BP, Esso and Shell followed Texaco's lead in raising the price of commercial dery by 1.1p per litre, or 5p per gallon.
Mobil increased its price by 1.2p a litre.
They all blamed it on the further fall of Sterling on the international market. Shell said that every US cent fall in the value of the pound added £13m to its trading bill. This latest increase means that the scheduled price of commercial (bulk} dery has edged over £1.90 per gallon.
Although hauliers gain rebates according to the amount they buy or where they are based, all will suffer another increase of 5p a gallon on their bill. There are no plans for an immediate rise in retail dery prices the oil companies say.
RHA executive officer Hugh Stewart told CM: "Hauliers must review their charges and charge more." He said that although the increase was "understandable" because of the falling pound, fuel was such a large part of a haulier's bill that rates must rise.
He said that hauliers' costs rose by 6.8 per cent last year while haulage rates remained "largely static" during the year.
The higher costs last year — in 1983 costs rose by 4.3 per cent for hauliers — could be "almost totally attributed to the increase in fuel prices during the year."
A London based fruit haulier, G. T. and T. R. Edmonds told CM that any increase in diesel always had a very big effect on it. It was impossible to increase rates easily.
The reality was that it had been hauling fruit for the same rates for five or six years and rates even dropped last year, it said.