Emergency response across Highlands not expected to be hit by rising fuel prices despite growing fears of impact
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Emergency services across the Highlands will not be affected by rising fuel prices, first responders claim.
The situation between Ukraine and Russia has seen fuel prices across the region surging to near 180p per litre in Inverness in the last week.
Concerns that emergency responders covering one of the biggest geographical regions in Scotland could be affected have been raised.
But the police, fire and rescue and ambulance all claim that services will be operating as normal despite the diesel and petrol price increase.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: "Our policing response is not affected by fuel prices and we are not seeing any issue with supply at this time."
Derek Wilson is the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s Local Senior Officer for Highland.
He said: "The safety of our communities is our highest priority.
"We have national procurement contracts in place to ensure that any changes in fuel prices do not impact on our ability to attend at emergencies. We would like to take this opportunity to reassure members of the public that we will continue to respond whenever our assistance is required.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Ambulance Service said: "There are no supply concerns we are aware of and cost increases have no impact to Service delivery.
"The Scottish Ambulance Service, like other public and private sector fleet operators, are not protected from the financial implications of fuel cost increases.
"Our annual usage is around 6.5m litres nationally and any increases have a financial impact.
"We procure our fuel via a national contract."
