WITH fuel filling stations running out of petrol and diesel, and other fuel filling stations rationing fill-ups to £30 following the recent spate of fuel panic buying, Paul Hollick, chair of the Association of Fleet Professionals, offers this advice for SME fleet drivers:
It’s understandable fleets and drivers will worry about the reports that are being seen in the media, and also by the more close-to-home signs of queuing at some service stations, but our advice is very much not to panic. If you don’t need fuel immediately and join those queues, you will probably only make the situation worse because there is enough petrol and diesel, just a problem with distribution that should hopefully be largely resolved within a matter of days. We don’t want to see a return to 2001 when panic buying was as much an issue as the fuel shortages themselves. As much as possible, everyone should just follow normal fuel buying patterns.
According to the FT today (27 September 2021), the Prime Minister was considering bring in the army to help drive tankers around the country, while it was also looking at relaxing visa requirements on a temporary basis to encourage more foreign drivers to assist with the current driver shortage.