Queues build at west Auckland petrol station ahead of fuel tax starting

Saturday, 30 June 2018

Cars continue to queue for the cheapest gas in Auckland.

A west Auckland petrol station has queues building 'halfway down the road' as drivers scramble to save at the pump ahead of the introduction of the regional fuel tax on Sunday.

The Gull petrol station, in the west Auckland suburb of Titirangi, had the cheapest petrol prices in the city on Saturday morning according to fuel-finding app, Gaspy.

According to fuel finding app Gaspy, the Gull petrol station in Titirangi had the cheapest gas in the city on Saturday morning.

It has unleaded 91 at $1.99 and diesel at just $1.28.

The next cheapest gas stations were Gull Wiri, on Roscommon Rd, and also the Gull in Papatoetoe - both had 91 at $2.03.

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The Gull station in Titirangi is fully self service, as were four of the top five cheapest across the region.

Titirangi resident Jess Edwards said the line of cars was snaking around the corner and halfway down Titirangi Rd on Saturday morning, as Aucklanders looked to minimise the financial damage the new fuel tax will have.

'The line is just getting longer and longer by the hour, but I don't blame people. I will be waiting in line to fill up if it means saving a decent chunk of money,' she said.

Gaspy manager Larry Green said the app had seen a spike in users and downloads in the past week, and he anticipated that trend to continue.

'We are sitting at about 130,000 downloads at the moment and our daily users are up to about 1000 a day,' he said.

'To better serve our users we have today launched our latest update which gives people wider search parameters around Auckland to find where the best gas deals are. With the pending fuel tax, we anticipate our numbers will continue to grow and so will the app accordingly.'

The manager of the Mobil gas station in Mercer, just outside the fuel tax zone, said sales hadn't spiked for them and it was 'business as usual' at this stage.

Money from the tax, which is 11.5c on the litre, will be collected by New Zealand Transport Agency, not Auckland Council or Auckland Transport.

The projected $1.5 billion to be collected over 10 years from the tax will help fund the $28b Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP), which includes rail, road, cycling and safety improvements.

The regional fuel tax boundary runs south of Pukekohe and north of Port Albert, and the closest petrol station along State Highway 1 to the south not affected by the tax is Mobil Mercer.