01/10/2026
Very long one, but worth reading.
At Lumi Place, we can see the cost of this crisis with our own eyes.
Every Monday morning, people come to us because they need food.
Not because it is fashionable.
Not because it is convenient.
Because they need it.
And what we are seeing now should worry everyone.
The number of people needing support is not falling.
The amount of free food available for us to redistribute is.
At the same time, the cost of collecting that food keeps increasing.
More expensive diesel means more expensive collections.
More expensive transport.
More expensive deliveries.
More pressure on a community organisation that, like many others, is already running on fumes.
Sometimes quite literally.
We can only redistribute what we can collect.
And when collecting it costs more and there is less surplus food available, the maths becomes brutally simple.
MORE PEOPLE.
LESS FOOD.
HIGHER COSTS.
That is where we are heading.
You can talk about inflation percentages, wholesale markets, taxation policy and economic forecasts.
We see it differently.
We see it in the queue.
We see it in people asking whether there is anything extra this week.
We see it when families stretch one bag of food further than they should have to.
We see it when people who never imagined they would need help walk through our door.
And we see it when we have to say:
"Sorry. There isn't any more."
That is the part that never appears on the price board outside a petrol station.
And this brings us to the bigger problem.
CONGRATULATIONS BRITAIN.
We have finally reached the point where driving to work is starting to look like an expensive hobby.
Diesel is now averaging around 199p per litre in the UK.
Yes. Basically £2.
A completely ordinary 55 litre tank costs nearly £110.
Petrol is around 174p per litre.
But apparently we are supposed to shrug our shoulders and accept it because oil prices have gone up.
Brilliant.
Except that fuel prices are not just oil prices.
They are wholesale prices plus taxes plus margins plus government policy.
And governments absolutely can influence the final price.
The UK Government currently takes 52.95p Fuel Duty from every litre of petrol and diesel, before VAT is added.
Which means something rather important.
FUEL TAX CAN BE CHANGED.
It has already been changed before.
So whenever somebody tells you there is simply nothing that can be done about fuel prices, that is not quite the whole story.
Governments have choices.
They can reduce Fuel Duty.
They can introduce temporary targeted rebates.
They can provide relief for essential workers, carers, community organisations and small businesses.
They can look at VAT.
They can intervene temporarily when extraordinary market conditions create extraordinary hardship.
Other European countries use different tax levels, subsidies and intervention mechanisms, which is precisely why motorists across Europe can face dramatically different pump prices even though they are buying essentially the same commodity.
And before somebody says:
"Well, nobody HAS to drive."
Welcome to the real world.
People drive because they have jobs.
People drive because their children go to school miles away.
People drive because public transport does not magically appear outside every house at 5:30 in the morning.
People drive because they are carers.
Because they work nights.
Because they live outside city centres.
Because they deliver your parcels.
Because they repair your boiler.
Because they bring food to supermarkets.
Because ambulances, contractors, tradespeople, charities and community organisations do not operate on fairy dust.
And here is the part people sometimes forget.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO OWN A CAR TO PAY FOR EXPENSIVE DIESEL.
You pay for it when you buy bread.
You pay for it when a supermarket delivery arrives.
You pay for it when your builder buys materials.
You pay for it when your takeaway receives ingredients.
You pay for it when a care company sends somebody to your grandmother's house.
You pay for it when a charity collects donated food.
You pay for it when a business has to increase its prices because its vans cost hundreds of pounds more every month to run.
So this is not a MOTORIST problem.
It is an INFLATION problem.
It is a SMALL BUSINESS problem.
It is a FOOD PRICE problem.
It is a COMMUNITY SERVICES problem.
And increasingly, it is a POVERTY problem.
Think about somebody earning £1,600 or £1,800 a month.
Rent goes up.
Council Tax goes up.
Food goes up.
Electricity goes up.
Insurance goes up.
Then suddenly filling the car needed to get to work costs £100 plus.
Where exactly is that extra money supposed to come from?
Apparently there is a magical household account called:
"Unexpected National Economic Disaster Fund."
Most families forgot to open one.
So the money comes from food.
Heating.
Clothes.
Savings.
Children's activities.
Or, increasingly, credit cards and overdrafts.
And small businesses?
They cannot just absorb increasing costs forever.
Imagine three vans each using 200 litres of diesel a month.
At today's average price that is nearly £1,200 in diesel every single month.
And that is before insurance, wages, maintenance, tyres, finance and everything else required to keep those vehicles moving.
Eventually the price gets passed on.
To you.
Fuel Duty raises billions for the Treasury.
Reducing tax therefore costs the Government money.
Fair point.
But here is the question nobody should be frightened to ask:
WHAT DOES NOT REDUCING IT COST?
Higher food prices.
Higher business costs.
Higher delivery prices.
Greater household debt.
More pressure on charities.
More pressure on benefits.
More business failures.
More people deciding that taking an extra shift is barely worth it because getting there costs too much.
More families choosing between filling the fridge and filling the car.
Government intervention does not have to mean making petrol 99p forever.
Nobody sensible is suggesting that.
But when diesel reaches around £2 per litre, perhaps treating the situation like an ordinary Tuesday is not particularly sensible either.
Perhaps temporary intervention should actually mean TEMPORARY INTERVENTION.
Perhaps support should be targeted at people and organisations who genuinely depend on transport.
Perhaps we need a serious conversation about how much tax can reasonably be collected from something that millions of people cannot simply stop buying.
Because £2 diesel does not stay at the petrol station.
It gets inside your shopping trolley.
Your restaurant bill.
Your parcel delivery.
Your plumber's invoice.
Your council services.
Your community organisations.
Eventually it gets into virtually everything.
And for organisations like Lumi Place, the consequences are painfully simple.
More people need help.
It costs more to reach them.
There is less free food available to redistribute.
And every week the pressure gets a little worse.
At Lumi Place, we will keep doing everything we can.
But goodwill does not fill a fuel tank.
Volunteers cannot manufacture surplus food.
And community organisations cannot endlessly absorb rising costs while demand keeps climbing.
Because when a country reaches the point where food banks and community organisations are struggling to afford the fuel needed to collect free food, perhaps the problem is bigger than the price of diesel.
Perhaps the system itself is starting to run on fumes.
