The wholesale price of a barrel of oil has dropped but that has not been reflected on the petrol station forecourts, incurring the wrath of campaigners.

Latest analysis suggests that the price retailers pay has fallen by 5.6p a litre, and that could save motorists between £2 to £3 to fill up, but record fuel prices remain across most areas of the country.

The eye-watering high prices have hit the wallet of the British driver hard, coming at a time when gas prices at home are also spiralling, the cost of filling a typical 55-litre family car has risen by £19 in a year.

Fuel campaigners claim that the prices should now be below the previous 2012 record high, but the ‘rocket and feather’ affect, whereby prices rocket when prices rise, but fall slowly like a feather when prices fall, is once again playing out.

While the government has released oil reserves to try and alleviate some of the pain at the pump, the RAC’s fuel spokesman, Simon Williams has called for more to be done to investigate why retailers profit from inaction.

“This should provide drivers with some very welcome respite from rising prices at the pumps,” he said.

“While this action is clearly needed because of what’s happening with global oil demand there are also issues at home with retailer margins which the Government would do well to investigate.

“Last week the wholesale price of fuel dropped dramatically but the biggest retailers, who lead the market, resisted passing these savings on to drivers, instead holding off in the hope the price of oil would go back up.

“This is a classic example of 'rocket and feather' pricing. This also smacks of retailers taking advantage of the public’s general acceptance of rising energy prices.”

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