Case Studies, General News, Mapping Software > Rural expenditure on fuel…
December 23, 2011
This is part two of our series of blog posts on how increasing fuel prices affect rural life. Read part one here…
How increasing fuel prices affect rural life
Part 2: Expenditure on fuel
Using the Living Cost and Food Survey and our people classification, we can predict what proportion of their income a family spends on fuel for their cars. In the case of the ‘harder pastures’, used as our example in part 1, we find that that 5.0% of their expenditure is spent on fuel. There is only one branch that exceeds this, spending 5.3% of their total expenditure on fuel. That branch is the ‘developing families’.
Looking more closely at developing families we find that many members of this branch are younger adults, typically aged 25 to 34 with young children. Most are buying their own property, which is predominantly a terraced house. Found on the edge of towns or suburbs of major cities, here is a map of ‘harder pasture’ hotspots in the East of Yorkshire showing the time it takes them to get to key towns in the region.
You will note that they have short travel times to get to the major towns but they are well placed for out-of-town shopping centres. The hotspot with the longest drivetime to a major town is in Brough, with a drivetime to Hull of 29 minutes but they do have a good train service.
If fuel prices rise, both ‘harder pastures’ and ‘developing families’ will feel the pinch but, due to their proximity to major towns, ‘developing families’, have more options to use public transport or cycleways.
In terms of national averages, both ‘harder pastures and ‘developing families’ spend just over 40% more than the national average on fuel. This percentage is exceeded by two more affluent branches ‘rural comfort’ and ‘thriving families’ (both related to the ‘harder pastures’ branch). These branches spend over 60% more than the national average on fuel although because they are wealthier, this expenditure is a smaller proportion of their total expenditure.
In part 3 (the final part of this blog), we will look at attitudes towards fuel consumption and the environment.
Posted by Geoff Beacon, Chairman at Beacon Dodsworth.
