Protestors may take to the streets over spiraling fuel prices.

The high costs are causing "frustration and anger" among hauliers, the Road Haulage Association has warned.

Prices have gone up every week for the past 12 weeks with a more than two pence rise last week, the association's director of policy, Jack Semple, said.

He described the impact as "quite severe" and criticised duty rates in Britain which he said were "much higher" than elsewhere in Europe.

Mr Semple warned that if prices continued to rise and hauliers became increasingly frustrated with government policy, protests could not be ruled out.

"We are looking towards the government for help in terms of an equal duty playing field with Europe to achieve price stability," he said.

Fuel was "the biggest variable cost" for hauliers, he said, and it had "gone up every week for 12 weeks".

"But there is definite frustration and anger. There shouldn't be an increase in fuel duty at a time of clear volatility in oil prices," he added.

However, a spokesman for pressure group Transaction 2007, the reincarnation of organisations involved in the 2000 fuel protests, said he believed protest action would be taken.

"I think it will happen in the next seven to 10 days. I can't say much about it," he said.

The action was likely to take the form of "rolling road" blocks, he added.

Geoff Dossetter, director of external affairs at the Freight Transport Association, said: "I don't think there's the appetite for protests like there was before.

"But it is clear there's a problem. There's a lot of unhappiness about the fact that prices are going up remorselessly."

(BMcC)