An alarming trend: British families are using credit cards to pay for petrol and, according to a recent report by Equifax, a third of these are paying off less than 25% of their balance at the end of each month. Another 10% are making only the minimum repayment.

The implications of this are enormous. Unnumbered thousands of families across the UK already need help with debt, but to this point have not sought out debt assistance from any of a number of debt management companies that are available. Those for whom motoring is a necessary expense – social workers and roving sales representative for example – are going to be driven to seek help with individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs), debt management plans or any of a range of debt assistance in the near future.

The average Briton, according to national money education charity Credit Debt, now spends £67.90 to fill a car with a 50-litre tank with unleaded petrol. This, says the charity, is one reason why it received more than eight thousand new debt problems every working day last month, and cannot hope to keep up with the volume.

A Treasury spokesman said: “The government has taken decisive action to ease the burden of high fuel prices on motorists, cutting fuel duty, introducing a fair fuel stabiliser and deferring the planned inflation-only increase for 2011-12 to next year. These changes will save the average haulier about £1,700 over the year”.

But Philip King, director of ISWA, a small business that supplies expert witnesses, consultants and trainers to the social work sector, says the chancellor's initiatives on petrol prices have done nothing to help his firm: “The huge rise in petrol prices have really hit us as a business. It's a double whammy because the company itself takes a hit but so do the social workers and other associates we supply around the country. It feels as though we're being squeezed every which way.”

King goes on: “We looked at keeping our costs down a few years back and brought in some diesel cars, but now the cost of diesel is higher than petrol. We've also looked at public transport but a recent trip would have taken me four hours by train compared with under two hours by car. This government needs to do something quickly about the price of fuel”.

If you are among the people caught in this net, please give us a call to see whether we can help.

By James Murray