Fuel crisis: Panic buying leaves up to 90% of petrol pumps dry in major British cities
27 September 2021, 11:29
Petrol Retailers Association boss says 5k drivers might not be enough
Gordon Balmer, executive director of the Petrol Retailers Association, told LBC some petrol brands are seeing as many as 90% of their sites running dry.
He said: "We did a straw poll yesterday morning of a number of our members who have around 200 sites between them.
"Fifty per cent of those we spoke to said their sites were dry and some actually said 90 per cent of their sites were dry, so it is on a company-by-company basis and almost on a brand-by-brand basis because some oil companies are still relatively okay in terms of deliveries."
The Prime Minister is said to be considering whether to call in soldiers to deliver fuel to petrol stations as pumps ran dry after days of panic buying.
When asked about possible Government plans to grant temporary visas to get more HGV drivers, Mr Balmer said: "We are a fuel retailing trade association, not a logistics company, but I would have thought anything like that is going to help, but from what I hear maybe that's not enough, so I know the Government are looking at other measures such as drafting in military drivers.
"What we're hoping is a lot of people have filled up over the weekend, a lot of people only fill up once a month, that might give us some respite to start to replenish stocks over the next few days."
