Hauliers, hotels and farms warn they are in survival mode' as fuel costs spiral

Fuel, fertilizer, and heating-oil costs have risen sharply, creating a cost-of-doing-business crisis across rural Britain. Hauliers report weekly fuel bills tens of thousands of pounds higher than earlier in the year. Farmers say distorted economics are leading some to sell stockpiled fertiliser instead of planting crops. Off-grid hotels face near-doubling heating-oil prices within a fortnight, with one operator reporting a jump from 81p to 143p per litre. The increase arrives alongside higher payroll costs from the national living wage uplift and rising business rates. Operators say they cannot reduce heating and water needs, so they must absorb the costs, leaving them unable to pay themselves adequately.

"Even as diplomats in Washington and Tehran inch towards what officials describe as a largely negotiated peace deal, the damage on the ground is already done. Hauliers report fuel bills running tens of thousands of pounds a week higher than at the start of the year. Farmers say the economics have become so distorted that some are quietly selling stockpiled fertiliser rather than planting crops with it. And in Britain's off-grid hotels, the cost of a litre of heating oil has very nearly doubled inside a fortnight."

"A 76 per cent jump in heating oil, overnight Shaun Whitehouse, co-owner of Lanes Hotel, a 35-strong boutique spa in Somerset, has worked in hospitality for almost half a century. He has never, he says, seen anything quite like this. We're struggling to keep our heads above water, he told Business Matters. The price of heating oil at the hotel, which sits off the national gas grid, has rocketed from 81p to 143p a litre in a fortnight a rise of more than 76 per cent at exactly the moment his payroll has been inflated by the national living wage uplift and his business rates bill has risen again."

"There's not a lot we can do. We have got to heat the place, and water, so we just have to absorb it, he said. Today I am covering three jobs; seven days a week of this and not being able to pay yourself enough money at the end of the month is just grim. His frustration with Whitehall is undisguised. It seems that rural communities are just swept under the carpet by the government that's the feeling post-pandemic when this happened then."

"It is a story playing out across the off-grid hospitality sector, where operators have been navigating energy procurement as a strategic boardroom issue for some time, but where the speed and scale of the latest move has left even experienced buyers exposed. Colossal' costs o"

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