A Highland community in line for the UK Government’s fuel discount scheme has no filling station.
The Halkirk postcode area (KW12) is one of six new postcodes added this week to the Treasury’s bid to the European Commission to offer cut-price fuel in remote areas of the mainland.
The scheme cuts 5p off a litre of petrol or diesel to make fuel in rural areas more affordable.
But yesterday the manager of the former filling station in Halkirk said the move had come too late as she stopped selling fuel in December.
Now, the nearest fuel pumps are at Thurso, which does not come under the scheme.
Karen Coghill, manager of J&G Sutherland garage in Halkirk, said she started selling petrol and diesel in November 2012 but the aging petrol and diesel pumps at the garage cost around £600 a time to repair.
The garage could not afford to replace them and had to shut down the pumps.
She said: “We just couldn’t do it. There was no money to be made in it. The idea was to generate work for our workshop but it was just a big headache. It wasn’t viable.
“It was quite popular. We had a lot of regulars, especially farmers and the elderly because we would come out and fill the cars for them.”
She said she applied for the scheme in the initial phase and was knocked back and said it would now make no difference to her business.
She added: “It’s a shame because there were a lot of people that used us.”
The filling station offered petrol for around £1.43 and diesel for £1.49 – generally around four and five pence more expensive respectively than the competitors.
Davie Sutherland, of Halkirk and District Community Council, said the scheme would be of no help to the community.
Mr Sutherland, of Harpsdale, near Halkirk, said: “It would be fine it we had somewhere to get fuel but there’s no fuel in Halkirk now. Thurso or Wick are the nearest and it’s a 22-mile round trip to Thurso.
“I’ve not used the pumps in Halkirk for the last eight or nine years because it’s too expensive. I fill up at the supermarket.”