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Yup, society is still banging on about the fuel shortage. You know the one – the reason you’re facing mad queues for petrol at the moment. It was caused by there being a lack of HGV drivers to deliver fuel to pumps. Both Covid and Brexit (two crosses on the ‘words we are sick of hearing’ bingo card) have caused the shortage of staff.
You may have thought that was old news, and that it had all began to sort itself out by now. That’s true for most parts of the country, with the issue being ‘virtually at an end’ in the Midlands, the North and Scotland, according to The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), but south-east England and London are still struggling to get petrol into the pumps.
Fortunately, this morning the military was roped in to start up its trucks, put on its camo (not sure why) and deliver fuel, after being on standby for a week. There’ll be around 200 military types on hand, apparently.
It’s needed, too. Apparently, as many as 20 percent of pumps in the south-east and London were running dry as of this morning, according to a survey carried out by the PRA. Hence those huge queues you’re seeing in and around the city, despite the crisis generally being considered over.
So don’t worry, we should all be running on full soon enough. Though, of course, the disruption has had some knock-on issues in terms of deliveries which might need a little extra time to recover. The buses are all fine though, so no worries there.
There’s still some concern about the lack of HGV drivers, though, as this could hinder food supplies in the run-up to Christmas. The chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, Nick Allen, told Sky News he suspects that ‘food can be imported and probably the turkeys might not be British turkeys but they may end up being French, or even turkeys from further afield’. Oops.