A MOTORIST was incensed to see the price of fuel literally rise before his eyes as he waited in a queue for diesel at a Bournemouth garage.

Tony Denslow, 42, of Muscliff watched in disgust as the price of diesel at the Esso garage in Kinson Road suddenly increased from 150.9p to 152.9p per litre in the space of 20 minutes.

“I joined the queue for fuel at around 5.20pm on Sunday and just as I was turning on to the forecourt a member of staff asked me to wait and started putting a barrier of cones in front of the cars.

“At first I thought they had run out of fuel even though I’d seen the tanker at the garage earlier.

“But then I saw they were putting the prices up. I couldn’t believe it.

“I was running out of fuel as this was the fifth garage I’d tried so I had no choice, I had to fill up, but I was really disgusted.”

Mr Denslow who suffers with a rare auto-immune condition called Polyarteritis Nodosa, which is a serious disease of the blood vessels, has been on disability benefit since April last year.

“I’m not the sort of person to make a fuss usually as stress makes me ill, but I feel we are getting ripped off in this country.

“I asked to speak to the manager about it when I went to pay, but he couldn’t give me a good reason why they had put the prices up and told me to speak to head office.

“I reckon it’s because they knew that most of the other garages in the area had closed and they wanted to make more of a profit.”

A spokesman for Esso head office told the Echo it was a dealer-owned site and not one run by the company.

“We have a supply agreement in place but the dealer can set their own fuel prices because it is independently run.”

No-one from the petrol station was available to comment.