Absolutley nothing to do with writing 5: 'PetrolPrices.com' oh and while were at it lets have House Prices too.

Back in the fuel blockades of 2001 - somebody in the roads fuel lobby set up a really neat website called 'petrolbusters.com' - now defunct - that would give you a report of where the cheapest petrol was in your are and inform your decision as to wether to shop around or just pop round the corner.

It was bought by the AA 'The Motorists Friend' and its future seemed safe - I dont know when - and little by little features dissapeared from the site - suddenly it was about 5 pages in to the main AA website - and you frequenly couldnt find it even if you had found it the day before - then you could only use the search for cheapest petrol 5 times a day - then there was the logging in to the site - and just under two years ago they pulled the plug on what was a viable business that they had disrupted terribly and killed it off.

Martin Lewis of moneysavingexpert.com made a good offer to the AA to run it for them, but the AA were adamant the wanted it dead. AA 'The Motorists Friend' indeed. I was so incensed at the time I wrote to them - explaining next time I saw a £40,000 TV add for the AA Id remember their attitude - I recieved a response whic politely and sureealy informed me I was no on some sort of Duty Log and that was the end of the matter - shame on them - well I got over it.

But, HORRAY, its back - or well something new, different and potentially better is - a new UK petrol price comparison engine -See the Cheapest UK Petrol Prices for Free - PetrolPrices.com is online. There is a short registration process to go through but what is great is that a new model of collecting the prices at the different stations has come up - fuel cards send EPOS data back to their issuers and it is that data that can be harvested. One micro issue with this is that garages that process less fuel card transactions - typicaly expensive quiet rural ones away from main routes the data wont be so good and may be days old.

This is pretty self explanitory but these are the results fro my address right now -

Tesco Martlesham Extra Ipswich 7.91 miles 84.9p 28-11-2005
Shell Woodbridge Woodbridge 9.35 miles 84.9p 28-11-2005
Shell Grove Woodbridge 9.39 miles 84.9p 27-11-2005
Sainsburys Warren Heath Ipswich 9.94 miles 84.9p 28-11-2005
Shell Orwell Ipswich 10.87 miles 84.9p 28-11-2005
Shell Heath Ipswich 11.55 miles 85.9p 28-11-2005
Snax 24 Spring Road Ipswich 11.9 miles 85.9p 28-11-2005
Martlesham Heath Services Ipswich 7.94 miles 86.9p 28-11-2005
Morrisons Felixstowe Felixstowe 0.58 miles 87.9p 28-11-2005
Felixstowe Dock Service Area Felixstowe 1.2 miles 87.9p 28-11-2005

Yes dull, dull, dull, but so is paying £££s for fuel unecessarily.

Also worth a click is their partner site ourproperty.co.uk that allows you to see who has paid what for property in the area. This is going to upset a lot of people - apparently one of my neighbours completed for £108,363 on Friday - which is £20,000 off the top of the market. Oh dear.

Both site make lovely use of the excellent google maps Enjoy.