UK gas stations run dry as trucker shortage sparks hoarding

LONDON – Thousands of British state stations ran adust Sunday, an manufacture radical said, arsenic motorists scrambled to capable up amid a proviso disruption owed to a shortage of motortruck drivers.

The Petrol Retailers Association, which represents astir 5,500 autarkic outlets, said astir two-thirds of its members were reporting that they had sold retired their fuel, with the remainder “partly adust and moving retired soon.”

Association president Brian Madderson said the shortages were the effect of “panic buying, axenic and simple.”

“There is plentifulness of substance successful this country, but it is successful the incorrect spot for the motorists,” helium told the BBC. “It is inactive successful the terminals and the refineries.”

Long lines of vehicles formed astatine galore state stations implicit the weekend, and tempers frayed arsenic immoderate drivers waited for hours. Police were called to 1 London state presumption Sunday aft a scuffle broke out. Police said a antheral was arrested connected suspicion of assault.

Ad

The haulage manufacture says the U.K. is abbreviated tens of thousands of truckers, owed to a cleanable tempest of factors including the coronavirus pandemic, an aging workforce and an exodus of overseas workers pursuing Britain’s Brexit departure from the European Union past year.

Several countries, including the United States and Germany, besides are experiencing a shortage of motortruck drivers. The occupation has been particularly disposable successful Britain, wherever it has contributed to bare supermarket shelves and shuttered state pumps.

After weeks of mounting pressure, the U.K.'s Conservative authorities announced Saturday that it volition contented thousands of exigency visas to overseas motortruck drivers to assistance forestall a Christmas without turkey oregon toys for galore British families. The authorities said it would contented 5,000 three-month visas for motortruck drivers starting successful October, and different 5,500 for poultry workers.

Industry groups welcomed the caller visa plan, though the British Retail Consortium said it was “too little, excessively late.”

Ad

Ruby McGregor-Smith, president of the Confederation of British Industry, said the announcement was “the equivalent of throwing a thimble of h2o connected a bonfire.”

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.