Changes soon to petrol curbs?

Press, 17 April 1979, Page 6

Changes soon to petrol curbs?

PA Wellington; | Changes may be made soon to week-end petrol sales restrictions to prevent; some service stations from: going out of business. A change in restriction j times was one of several! petrol-saving alternatives to

the week-end ban considered last week by the Government’s Petrol Demand Restraint Advisory Committee. The Minister of Energy (Mr Birch) said in Auckland at the week-end that he and the Cabinet would soon look at the whole of the energysaving to see if anything could be done to help petrol stations in financial trouble as a result of the fuel crisis. Many country service stations have found themselves deeply in debt to oil companies because of sales reductions caused by the ban on week-end trading. Some Canterbury garages have suffered hardship because of the week-end petrol ban. according to the branch president of the Motor Trade Association (Mr P. Edgerton).

i! He said that any move to' i distribute fairly the losses j) caused by reduced petrol, I*sales would be welcome. The) burden of losses was un-i ijfairly distributed at present. I I “Certainly there has been )some hardship in outlying liareas,” Mr Edgerton said. , Some station proprietors

have said they could soon be forced to close if something were not done about weekend restrictions. Both the Government, its restraint advisory group of sector representatives, and the service station industry’s national body, the Motor Trade Association, have refused to disclose what alternative measures were being considered to save the nec-i essarv 10 per cent of petrol. But some service station owners have suggested that a balancing of petrol restrictions during the week-end and on working days could save the ailing stations. For many of them, the weekends, particularly Saturday, were their biggest trading days. A combination of week-; end and week-day trading'

rbans could be introduced. ; ;;The owners said they be-! li Sieved this was the ' most--likely alternative to the! ■ present restrictions. Mr Edgerton was unable) i to say whether a week- 1 ; day ban on petrol sales would help these stations, > however. Some garage ■

! owners felt that such a > move would be of no benefit at all. One rural station owner > said that garage owners ) were unlikely to sell any * more petrol if the ban was ' shifted to another day, and r they would still have to ■ meet staff wages. [ Any action that the Gov- ! eminent takes could depend ’ on a survey it has conducted since the week-end ban was ' imposed. The survey covers L petrol sales by a number of j garages and includes about !30 stations in the Christ- . church area. Mr Edgerton said the Gov- ■ emment was still taking re- > suits from this survey and -he expected it to continue ofor a few more weeks yet.