Charities and businesses wrestle with diesel cost
Cancer charity Daft as a Brush and Teesside Minibus Hire say they are struggling with pump prices.
Charities and businesses are grappling with the rising cost of diesel.
Cancer charity Daft as a Brush's Scott Jobson said donations were being lost at the pump.
Charities and businesses across the North East have said they are struggling with the increasing price of diesel.
According to the RAC motoring group, the average price of diesel in the UK has climbed above £2 a litre for the first time.
Over the past seven months, the Iran war has badly disrupted the production and transport of wholesale oil and refined products from the region, sending prices soaring around the world.
The North East cancer charity Daft as a Brush said it could no longer afford to replace its diesel vehicles with electric ones as it struggled to fill them up, while Teesside Minibus Hire said the sharp rise in prices was "not sustainable".
Daft as a Brush, which transports cancer patients to hospital appointments, said it was spending £15,000 a month on diesel - £5,000 more than last year.
The Newcastle-based charity - which covers 600,000 miles each year in its 30 vans - said it had intended to swap them for electric vehicles, but now could not afford to do so because the money was being swallowed up at the pump.
Volunteer driver Davey Hall said: "Before the big hikes, we used to maybe fill up and it would take £40-45.
"Last week, it was £94 to fill the tank from half full."
Head of income generation Scott Jobson said the money was coming out of funds raised by donations, and they were not eligible for any sort of discount.
"At the pump, what you see is what we pay," he said.
"It stunts our growth and development."
In Middlesbrough, Teesside Minibus Hire director Billy Johnson said they often entered contracts with schools and businesses that could last several years - and were based on the fuel cost at the time they were drawn up.
"We're not running at a loss yet, but we're running close it to it not being worthwhile or sustainable," he said.
Johnson said they had to pass the cost on to customers using services such as day hires, but because those customers were also struggling with inflation, they were not always willing to pay the higher price.
Instead, people were turning to cheaper, unlicensed hire services that did not have to cover the same overheads, he said.
Asked whether the business could survive if fuel prices did not fall, he said: "Long term, probably not."
It caps the tax at 5p per litre for petrol and diesel, and was introduced by the previous Conservative government after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine pushed prices up in 2022.
The government has said there is no reason to worry about possible diesel shortages over the Iran War and said the country has a "diverse and resilient supply".