Petrol stations across London are still running dry as the fuel crisis exacerbated by panic buying and a shortage of lorry drivers to make deliveries enters its 15th day.
Five days after 200 military personnel were deployed to drive tankers to help ease the crisis, a Shell garage in Paddington, west London, was completely out of fuel while a Gulf forecourt in Chelsea was stocking diesel but no petrol.
Jess, a self-employed massage therapist who needs her car to drive to her clients’ homes, told i she was “grateful” that she could fill up her tank today as her work generally takes place in the evenings when she feels safer in her car than on public transport.
She filled up with petrol at Andrew’s Garage Ltd in Ladbroke Grove this morning but said she faced losing out on work due to the ongoing shortages.
“There is public transport, but I work late at night so as a woman, travelling to east London in the evening and then having to get off public transport and walk doesn’t work for me,” she told i.
“If I hadn’t been able to get petrol today I would have either had to change all my clients or just go without work and I don’t get benefits if I’m not working.”
Jess was unable to find any petrol in the area yesterday morning, but Andrew’s Garage Ltd got a delivery this morning for the first time since the crisis began.
“I’m fine taking public transport during the day but at night I want to get straight to my client’s house and then get straight back to my front door without having to walk,” she said.
John Newman, a tradesman, attempted to fill up today at the Shell garage on Bayswater Road but there was no fuel. “It’s affected us because we need to get work to earn some money,” he told i. “I’m turning down work because I can’t get there due to traffic jams and having no fuel.”
The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) has called for an independent inquiry into the crisis as fuel shortages continue to cause mayhem in London and the South East.
It said that even with the deployment of the Army, “the recovery is simply not happening quick enough”.
The PRA said: “We are into our 15th day of the crisis. There needs to be an independent inquiry into the crisis, so that motorists are protected from such acute fuel shortages in the future.”
The group said the return to normal fuel volumes in London and the South East is “blighted by the current inept prioritisation policy”. Other regions have three times more capacity per head at filling stations compared to London and the South East, and there are more cars per household in London and the South East, a spokesperson said.
“This probably explains why filling stations in the region are running dry more quickly,” added the PRA.
The group’s chairman, Brian Madderson, said Thursday’s survey of PRA members shows 12 per cent of filling stations in London and the South East are still dry while 17 per cent have just one grade of fuel.
Just 71 per cent have both grades of fuel, compared to 90 per cent of stations outside London and the South East.
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On 26 September, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng implemented a measure to temporarily exempt industry from the Competition Act 1998 for the purpose of sharing information and optimising supply.
Known as the Downstream Oil Protocol, it allowed the Government to work with fuel producers, suppliers, hauliers and retailers in an effort to minimise disruption. Several meetings have taken place between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and specialist hauliers and oil companies since.
But the PRA said they have been left out of these meetings, arguing that it means the independent dealer network – which numbers 65 per cent of petrol stations – has not had access to any of the information which was supposed to have been shared.
“We do not know when the deliveries are arriving and we do not know how they are being prioritised,” a spokesperson said.
“We are yet to see any benefits arising from the suspension of competition law.”
https://inews.co.uk/news/petrol-shortage-fuel-crisis-woman-work-nights-fearing-job-public-transport-1237784
