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Cheapest petrol near me: 7.0p a litre between the ends of one town
Everyone tells you to shop around for fuel. Almost nobody tells you what it is worth. Across the 508 British towns with enough forecourts to compare, the cheapest unleaded is typically 2.8p a litre below the middle of the local market, which is £1.57 on a 55-litre tank. Between the cheapest and the dearest forecourt in one town the gap is typically 7.0p.
Is it actually worth driving for
In 154 of the 508 towns compared, the gap between the cheapest and the dearest forecourt is worth £5 or more on a single tank. In the rest it is not, and the honest answer there is to fill up wherever is convenient. A detour of a few miles to save 80p is a loss once you count the fuel burned getting there.
The figure that matters is the gap in your own town, not the national average, and that is what the town pages show: every forecourt, its current price, and when it last reported.
Where shopping around pays most
These are the towns with the widest gap between their cheapest and dearest unleaded. In each one, the same litre costs the amount in the last column more at one end of town than the other.
| Town | Forecourts | Cheapest | Dearest | Gap | Per tank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nottingham | 54 | 150.9p | 198.9p | 48.0p | £26.40 |
| Isle Of Lewis | 4 | 142.9p | 179.9p | 37.0p | £20.35 |
| Rugby | 12 | 164.9p | 199.9p | 35.0p | £19.25 |
| Armagh | 14 | 165.9p | 199.9p | 34.0p | £18.70 |
| Derby | 30 | 166.9p | 199.9p | 33.0p | £18.15 |
| Gloucester | 25 | 162.9p | 195.9p | 33.0p | £18.15 |
| Richmond | 5 | 166.9p | 199.9p | 33.0p | £18.15 |
| Wolverhampton | 27 | 167.6p | 199.9p | 32.3p | £17.77 |
| Northampton | 34 | 164.7p | 196.9p | 32.2p | £17.71 |
| Bolton | 29 | 165.9p | 197.9p | 32.0p | £17.60 |
| Leicester | 42 | 166.9p | 198.9p | 32.0p | £17.60 |
| Wakefield | 19 | 167.9p | 199.9p | 32.0p | £17.60 |
And where it does not
The opposite case is just as useful. In these towns, each with at least eight forecourts, the price is so consistent that looking around gains you almost nothing.
| Town | Forecourts | Cheapest | Dearest | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harlow | 9 | 175.9p | 177.9p | 2.0p |
| Barnsley | 18 | 171.9p | 174.9p | 3.0p |
| Downpatrick | 10 | 165.9p | 168.9p | 3.0p |
| Durham | 9 | 169.9p | 173.9p | 4.0p |
| Chesterfield | 18 | 171.9p | 175.9p | 4.0p |
| Londonderry | 11 | 165.9p | 169.9p | 4.0p |
| Stockton-On-Tees | 9 | 169.9p | 173.9p | 4.0p |
| Romford | 11 | 171.9p | 175.9p | 4.0p |
The shortcut that usually works
If you will not check, there is one rule that holds most of the time. A supermarket forecourt is the cheapest in its town in 53% of the towns compared, while supermarkets are only 29% of forecourts overall. They win far more often than their numbers suggest, though not always, which is why the brand league table is worth a look before you commit to one chain.
There is no app here and nothing to sign up to. Every forecourt in Britain is legally required to publish its prices under the Motor Fuel (Open Data) Regulations 2025, this site reads that data every 30 minutes, and you can download the lot.
How this is measured
Unleaded E10, the grade most drivers buy. Only towns with at least four forecourts currently reporting are included, because below that one station sets the whole picture. Prices more than 25% from the national median are excluded: a single mistyped figure can otherwise invent a gap that does not exist, and on this data one 230.0p entry did exactly that. Data as at 2026-09-25.
Source: the government Fuel Finder scheme, run by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which retailers are legally required to submit to. Every figure here is recalculated when the site is built, so it describes the market as at the date above rather than whenever this was written.