LOCALS of a small Borders town have joined together to buy a vacant petrol station to combat fuel poverty in a move they say is saving families £1000 a year.
For a decade, Newcastleton had been without a fuel station, a situation which has impacted trade and forced villagers to make long trips to fill their fuel tanks.
Back in 2015, a community trust was set up with the goal of buying an old petrol station and with the aid of £320,000 in National Lottery funding, the site was renovated with a new forecourt and fuel tanks.
And now, with the price of petrol at 172p a litre and diesel at 179p, the site is getting through 21,000 litres a week and between 400,000 and 500,000 litres a year.
All profit made from the site is being reinvested into the town, with fuel company Gulf renting the service station, which has an electric charging point and two petrol and diesel pumps each, on the condition that it is kept clean and well-staffed.
The chairman of the community council, Greg Cuthbert, said the site was a “godsend” for drivers who, before the site’s renovation, would have had to fuel up in Carlisle or Hawick.
He also stressed the importance of cars to residents as the village was served by only four buses a day.
“With an elderly population, you would probably get someone taking the car there for them [to fill up] and bringing it back for them,” he said.
“People usually have three or four cars per family — it’s mental. It has been a huge saving, around £900 to £1000 a year. There’s so much more expense to being in a rural area.”
He added that the figure the villagers paid for the station couldn’t be made public as it was a private sale but that locals were delighted with the result.
He said: “It has been fantastic.
“It is definitely the way to go. We have got a good relationship with the fuel supplier. We rent them the fuel station and they manage it. It’s the first time it’s ever been done.”
When the town’s last petrol station closed around 15 years ago, it seriously affected the local economy.
“We didn’t sell fuel for ten years,” Cuthbert said.
“There was a decline in shopping in the village because people would go to Carlisle to shop and fill up. A lot of footfall has come back, you can see businesses thriving. It’s been great for the village.”
