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Chancellor John Healey is preparing to deliver his first budget on Wednesday.

For small businesses hit by soaring fuel prices, and first-time buyers struggling to get on the housing ladder, there is a lot riding on it.

The BBC has been speaking to people across the South about what they want to see.

The Treasury said the chancellor was already "giving the high street more breathing space", including by cutting business rates.

'We've got to make some really tough choices'

Diana Logan-Watts is the manager of MS Centre Dorset, which uses five specially adapted minibuses to pick people up from their homes.

She said running them now cost over £2,000 more than last year.

"If we didn't run the buses in this way then these people would have no way of getting here at all," she said.

"We've got to make some really tough choices and we don't like doing that, we certainly don't like passing our costs on to our members."

She said that, in an ideal world, the chancellor would "knock duty off fuel".

Earlier this month, the RAC said diesel prices in the UK had reached an all-time high.

'It's impossible for us to keep going'

Meg Hunter runs an independent family florist in Winchester, delivering flowers across the region.

She cannot afford a shop, so her van is crucial to the business, and she says the cost of fuel is "just ridiculous".

"We've absorbed it up to now, but our suppliers have started charging a higher fuel contribution, and we are going to have to start including that in our costs too," she said.

"They just need to help us. It's impossible for us to keep going."

'I'm seriously thinking about giving up'

Antony Parsons runs a painting and decorating business in Alton, Hampshire.

He prices jobs three to six months in advance, but said fuel costs were rising so fast that "the margins we had are not there anymore".

"A lot of our guys travel so we are losing money whatever we do," he said.

He wants the chancellor to cut fuel duty and keep the temporary 5p cut, which is due to end at the end of the year.

"I'm seriously thinking about giving up," he said. "It's just not worth it."

'It's a big problem'

Paul, a driving instructor in Oxfordshire, said he could drive a couple of hundred miles a day taking learners to tests in places like Swindon and Banbury.

He said his fuel bills had risen from about £30 to about £60 in just a few weeks.

"It's a big problem. We use a lot of fuel... the prices are affecting the bottom line," he said.

"I don't doubt the government needs revenue... but I think there's a review perhaps due of how we use this money."

'It's gone wrong so many times'

Phoebe Jupp and her partner Kai have spent 16 months trying to buy their first home near Portsmouth, and three purchases have fallen through.

They are living in her mother's bedroom, while her mother sleeps on a sofa-chair in the lounge.

"We've had stress and hassle the whole way through. We're just fed up," she said.

Each failed purchase has cost them in survey and solicitors' fees, and they are now dipping into their deposit.

She wants a scheme like Scotland's, where sellers pay for the survey: "Then we'd know what we were buying."

'I feel absolutely heartbroken'

Rebecca Guest is selling her one-bedroom flat in Newbury so she can move to the North East, where she hopes to one day be mortgage-free.

But the flat eventually sold for £60,000 less than its initial valuation.

"It's a buyers' market, all around this area there are for sale signs," she said. "I feel absolutely heartbroken that I've lost most of the capital I've put into the flat."

She wants the government to do more to help first-time buyers get mortgages on all types of property, not just new builds.

'There's pent-up demand'

The chancellor is expected to confirm the Your First Home scheme, which lets people buy a new-build home with a 2.5% deposit and a 20% equity loan. But most homes sold in the South are second-hand.

Dan Channer, chief executive of Jones Robinson estate agents in Newbury, said the market was "not as bad as people think", and that September was the firm's best month for sales in several years.

"There is pent-up demand, particularly from first-time buyers," he said.

He would like to see "positivity in the budget to stop people feeling fearful", including a tweak to stamp duty levels and incentives for older people to downsize.

'Give the industry a fighting chance'

Chris Smith, landlord of the Crown at Chilton and the George at Upton, both near Didcot in Oxfordshire, wants the chancellor to cut VAT for hospitality.

"The most sensible thing John Healey could do would be to reduce VAT to 10 per cent to give the industry a fighting chance," he said.

He said more than half a million people had signed a petition calling for the cut.

"It's time for every political party to understand what hospitality actually brings to our country before it's too late."

What has the government said?

A Treasury spokesperson said the chancellor was cutting business rates by 20% for pubs, social clubs and live music venues, alongside £4.3bn to limit bill rises.

"As has always been the case, decisions on tax are a matter for the chancellor to set out at fiscal events," they added.

Healey previously told BBC Radio 5 Live: "I'm acutely concerned and conscious about how hard it is for families. I see that at the pumps myself."

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