The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) is hopeful that government officials will now consider the issues that forecourt operators face with their plans to require sites to report unavailability of specific fuel grades within 30 minutes of an outage.
The PRA was one of a contingent of trade associations and forecourt operators which on Monday (May 19) met with senior civil servants from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ); officials responsible for implementing the detail of the forthcoming Fuel Finder scheme.
The Fuel Finder scheme, formerly known as Pumpwatch, is to be introduced by the end of this year requiring that the UK’s 8,300 filling stations report fuel prices to a central aggregator within 30 minutes of making a change. The idea is to give motorists the chance to find the cheapest petrol, using apps which will access these collated figures.
Grade availability was not included as part of the original consultation on the Fuel Finder scheme, and the PRA wanted to highlight potential problems around this which were out of a petrol station operator’s control such as power cuts, technical faults, and delays refilling underground tanks, which could require raising unavailability flags.
After the meeting, the PRA’s executive director Gordon Balmer said: “This is the biggest concern for our members with the Fuel Finder scheme. There are many planned and unplanned operational issues that need to be taken account of here.
“A lot of out-of-stocks or equipment failure incidents are completely out of a forecourt operator’s control – that could be anything from weather conditions, bad traffic, or crime or an emergency on the forecourt. And staff will be busy dealing with these issues to ensure that fuel is available again in the shortest time possible.”
“We are pleased to have met with the government to put forward our concerns and they have gone away to consider their response. I’m hoping that they will now modify their plans.”
The PRA has worked extensively to ensure that the Fuel Finder scheme, which will be backed by legislation, is workable for forecourt operators.
Those found to ignore its requirements could face hefty fines from the scheme’s enforcer, the Competition Markets Authority, of up to 1% of an operator’s annual global turnover, up to 5% of their daily global turnover, or a combination of both.
Earlier this month DESNZ awarded the £3 million contract for the nationwide Fuel Finder database to a company called VE3 Global, an information technology consultancy which has its registered address in London, and many employees in India.
