Petrol station dumps its pumps

A garage in Northern Ireland is now pumpless

By the BBC's Dublin correspondent, Kevin Connolly

It stands a little forlornly on the road that leads from the city of Derry in Northern Ireland to Buncrana in the Irish republic - the modern equivalent of the pub with no beer.

It is the filling station with no pumps.

John Harkin's Texaco garage is now simply a convenience store and computer shop with a huge canopy and forecourt at the front.

He had all the equipment for selling petrol - including the pumps - removed earlier this year having concluded that it is simply impossible to sell petrol at British prices on his side of the border when it is available 25% cheaper just a few hundred yards away.

We can't justify selling petrol here

John Harkin

"We can't justify selling petrol here," he said.

"For three years we've been asking for some sort of government help or sign that things are going to change but it's just kept deteriorating further and further."

John Harkin has diversified into computer retailing to keep his business alive, but at the Texaco garage less than a minute's drive away over the border at Bridgend in County Donegal, the forecourt is crowded with customers.

Of these, 95% come from Northern Ireland. Of all the motorists who live in the United Kingdom, they are the only ones who have an easy way of avoiding British fuel duties and British prices.

"What you would get for £25 in Northern Ireland you're getting for £20 here, so it's a big saving and makes it well worth while" said one man who had driven 30 miles to fill up.

'Dump the pump'

He also loaded two huge plastic containers of petrol into his boot to make sure it was a profitable round trip.

There have always been differences in the price of fuel on the two sides of the Irish border - sometimes it has been to the benefit of consumers to the South, at other times to the North.

But the gap has never been this big before, fuelled as it is not just by a growing differential in petrol duties between Ireland and the UK but by the strength of sterling against the Irish pound which is linked to the Euro.

They view the "dump the pump" campaign with a certain detachment on both sides of the border.

It has come too late to save Northern Irish retailers whose businesses have been hit by the impossibility of competing with British prices against rivals charging at Irish levels.

Consumers can see no reason why anyone living within range of the border should not continue to benefit.

As the price of petrol rises up the political agenda in Britain, the only land frontier in the British Isles remains the best vantage point from which to see just how far it has risen.