MOTORISTS are to benefit from the latest supermarket fuel price wars with first Sainsbury's then Tesco slashing the price of unleaded petrol and diesel by up to five pence a litre.

Asda followed with a new national price cap on fuel and a cut of up to 2p per litre off diesel and up to 1p off unleaded. However Bradford-based Morrisons had last night yet to make any announcement on fuel price cuts.

The changes took effect from yesterday morning across all three supermarket giants' forecourts up and down the country.

However, Brian Madderson, of the Petrol Retailers’ Association, which represents independent filling stations, told the Telegraph & Argus that the supermarkets' move would put its members under even more pressure.

"The wholesale price for petrol and diesel hasn't gone up or down over the last two weeks, so there is no justification for such swingeing cuts as a result of a massive drop in the wholesale prices of fuel," Mr Madderson said.

"It's quite clear from the Government figures that supermarkets, despite opening new filling stations earlier this year, have lost ground and their overall share of petrol has gone down by 3.9 per cent in the first six months of this year.

"This just exemplifies that people aren't going to these big out of town supermarkets to shop any more and because of that they are not getting their petrol there too.

"This is really bad news for our members, as 900 independent filling stations have closed in five years . The more these supermarkets just blatantly use fuel to drive people back to their stores, the worse it gets for smaller independent sites and this will just exacerbate the rate of closure."

Thomas Crompton, who runs a fleet of vehicles in Bradford serving the construction and demolition industry, said the fuel price cuts could save him as much as £1,000 a week which he would then be ploughing back into his business, investing in more training, new workers and updating machinery.

"We use about 20,000 litres of diesel a week, if it's cut by 5p a litre it would save us about £1,000," he said.

"It wouldn't go into my pocket it would be invested back into the business. Let's hope the price drop is here to stay. It's good news for businesses and everyone."

RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: "The wholesale price of both petrol and diesel has been low for around three months and as a result motorists have been enjoying some of the cheapest prices for over three years, but this cut will take us to a new low, the likes of which we haven't seen since late 2010, early 2011 when the price of petrol and diesel unfortunately jumped by 10p a litre in just a few months."