One For The Petrol P.R.O.s!

Sir,

I counted 30 filling stations on a 35-mile drive in Essex. These all have a main road frontage and, of these, eight were newly built (not redeveloped). The maximum distance between any two was about three miles. I was prompted to count by the recent threats to put up petrol prices due to the sale of trading stamps. Supposing my casual survey to present a fairly representative picture, there are a number of interesting questions arising; one involves reconciling the scramble for new sites with insufficient profit from the existing ones, and another is whether such a high density is either desirable or necessary.

R. MORTIMER JONES:

Hockley.