A FURIOUS motorist has hit out at a local garage and claimed it used the world’s largest military airshow as an excuse to hike petrol prices.

A local Fairford resident, who asked not to be named, said she was horrified to discover the price of petrol at the town’s Shell garage had increased by 3p during the Air Tattoo, held on the weekend of July 16-17. The current price of unleaded petrol is 1349 pence per litre.

She said: "I mentioned to the cashier that I noticed that the petrol had increased by 3 pence a litre from last week.

"His excuse was that petrol sales had gone down, and that it was the weekend of the RIAT. I was not happy and told him that due to the RIAT the local people had to suffer with the increase in petrol charges."

Both the garage operators and Shell declined to comment.