Colin Morris of the Victoria Filling Station says he ended up paying more for its fuel than a supermarket was selling it for.

Mr Morris told the Courier he was in an impossible situation as an independent trader at Victoria Road, Elland.

Recently he was buying diesel at £1.14 a litre and Tesco in Brighouse was selling it at £1.08 a litre.

Because he sold relatively small amounts Mr Morris did not have the buying power of supermarkets and large petrol chains. And as prices rocketed, customers became more choosy and used Victoria Filling to buy a few litres and fill-up elsewhere with many choosing supermarkets.

Last month Crowtrees petrol station, Huddersfield Road, Brighouse, stopped selling fuel.

Mr Morris took over his business five years ago when it had been selling 25,000 litres a week.

Around the same time Tesco opened in Brighouse and sales plunged to 15,000 litres. Last summer they were at 13,000 litres and had fallen further to around 8,000 litres.

Mr Morris bought fuel from WCF Fuels (Eastern) and added 6p a litre at the forecourt. But after taking off credit card payments and VAT the profit margin was reduced to just over 3p a litre before overheads.

"You have to sell a lot of fuel just to pay wages and because of supermarkets independent traders don't have much chance," he said. "The less you sell the more it costs.

"Everybody wants cheaper petrol and you can't argue with people wanting to pay 5p less a litre."

Mr Morris will continue in business with his MoT garage, car sales and will be introducing a car wash. He was selling unleaded at £1.12 litre and diesel at £1.20.

Kiosk manager Hazel Kelsey is one of four staff being made redundant.

"Customers were commenting about the price," she said.

Tesco was this week selling unleaded at 104.9p a litre and diesel at 111.9p and drivers can always expect long queues when filling up.

Three years ago unleaded petrol cost under 90p a litre.

A Tesco spokesman said the company didn't have a national pricing policy and aimed to be competitive in local markets.

"There are very few independent retailers nowadays and I can't comment on what he was buying his fuel at. That is his business," he said.

WCF was unavailable for comment.