A FORMER mayor of Colchester has written to Chancellor Rishi Sunak calling for him to urgently look at fuel prices as the cost of fueling a car in Colchester rose by £20 a tank in just six months. 

Back in November the most expensive place to top up in Colchester cost drivers 147.9p per litre. 

This has now risen to about 183.9p per litre, equivalent to £18 a tank for a 50L car, despite the Government's 5p fuel duty cut.  

Now councillor Gerard Oxford is proposing a policy to help reduce the severity of fuel costs.

Mr Oxford, who was the mayor of Colchester from 2017 to 2018, has written a letter suggesting completely removing value added tax (VAT) from fuel.

It could mean people would save 30p per litre when they buy petrol.

Mr Oxford added removing VAT – also referred to as zero rating – would be more affordable from an administrative point of view.

He said: “I thought it was pretty straightforward – my thought was to leave fuel duty alone because I don’t think changing that is going to have an effect.

“The least costly [course of action] from an administrative point of view is to zero rate and energy for the duration of this problem until prices stabilise.

“Some solutions people come up with cost more than what you are saving admin wise – but to zero rate VAT on commodities for a period could be done easily.”

Having sent his proposal to Member of Parliament for Colchester, Will Quince, Mr Oxford said he received a reply from the Conservative MP to say it has been set in front of Rishi Sunak.

“I don’t know if [the chancellor] will look at it – lots of things are set before the chancellor," he said. 

“It’s just something that came up into my head, but it reduces prices straight away for fuel, it helps for manufacturing and transportation, and the by-product of that would be to bring down inflation.

“Being on the finance panel for a number of years has obviously rubbed off a bit,” he added.

The policy is proposal is one of many being put forward in an attempt to ease the cost of living crisis across the UK.

Last week, the price of UK made the biggest daily increase in more than 17 years, with the average cost of a litre of petrol reaching 180.73p – although many petrol stations charge an even higher rate.

“Zero rating fuel could have the desired effect of reducing costs and bringing down inflation,” Mr Oxford added.