Coach services, including home-to-school transport, could face cuts as record diesel prices push operators’ margins to breaking point, the industry’s main trade body has warned, prompting calls for the government to intervene where it has so far declined to act.
The Confederation of Passenger Transport said the cost of fuel had “surged this year to unsustainable levels, pushing coach operators’ already tight margins to breaking point”. Alison Edwards, the body’s director of policy, said it was “time for urgent action” and that without intervention, soaring prices would force difficult decisions over the availability of services and the viability of businesses themselves.
The warning came as the average price of diesel on UK forecourts hit a fresh record of more than £2 a litre last week, with the war in the Middle East continuing to disrupt global fuel supplies. Edwards noted that 85% of independent coach operators are family businesses, and called on the government to provide temporary support with the cost of diesel, saying the industry “needs help”.
The appeal highlights what the sector sees as an inconsistency in government support. Local bus operators in England have already received help with fuel costs through subsidies to cover running costs. Coach companies, which say they perform a similar role, have received no equivalent assistance.
The accountability question now sits squarely with ministers, who face parallel demands from the haulage sector. The Road Haulage Association has called for a pause on planned fuel duty rises and a rebate to help offset diesel costs. Richard Smith, the association’s managing director, said the sector was under similar strain, with businesses typically operating on profit margins of about 2%. “The continuing high fuel costs are a huge challenge for us,” he said. Hauliers are now paying an extra £350 a week for each truck compared with before the Iran war, he added, describing the situation as “just unsustainable” and noting that hundreds of transport businesses have already gone bust this year.
The RAC motoring organisation has also weighed in, calling on the government to expand its 5p cut in fuel duty, which has already been extended until the end of the year.
For individual operators, the arithmetic is unforgiving. Rhys Hackling, managing director of Direct Connect Logistics, which runs 22 lorries out of Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Warrington carrying goods from supermarket products to live events equipment, said the impact on his business had been “absolutely enormous”. The company normally spends about £50,000 a month on fuel; the figure is now close to £65,000. Because many hauliers work on fixed contracts with customers, rising fuel costs squeeze or wipe out their margins entirely. “If these events continue, then it’s going to put a lot of haulage firms out of business,” he said, adding that reduced market confidence means fewer jobs and work that “dries up very, very quickly”. “Somebody somewhere is having to pay for this, whether it’s the haulage firm or whether it’s the consumer.”
Meanwhile, there are some signs that pressure on ministers may ease at the source. Leaders of G7 nations said on Friday that they would release up to 100m barrels of their emergency diesel and crude oil stockpiles. The announcement came partly in response to Donald Trump suggesting he might introduce a ban on diesel exports, after rising sales to overseas buyers pushed US prices to record highs. The move appears to have averted that threat, which could have pushed UK diesel prices even higher, since Britain relies on the US for about a third of its diesel imports and does not refine enough fuel to meet domestic demand on its own.
On the question of supply security, the transport minister, Keir Mather, has sought to reassure the public, saying the UK’s fuel supply is “inherently resilient” and that people “shouldn’t be concerned about shortages”. Whether that resilience extends to the operators keeping coaches and lorries on the road remains the central question for a government now facing calls for urgent support from both the passenger transport and haulage sectors.