UK fuel shortage worsens as industry chief warns ‘people will go without’

Panic buying continued throughout Britain’s petrol forecourts on Saturday, prompting an industry chief to say “a lot of people are going to go without fuel”.

“This could be emergency services, it could be deliveries to supermarkets, it could be NHS [National Health Service] workers, doctors, firemen, people who have really serious jobs that need 24-hour requirements for fuel,” Brian Madderson, head of the Petrol Retailers Association, told Sky News.

So does UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, it would seem. On Saturday, a government spokeswoman said 5,000 short-term visas would be issued to mitigate the lorry driver shortage that kick-started the fuel rush.

For two days, petrol stations across the length and breadth of the UK have been clogged by cars, day and night, as motorists clamber to fill up their tanks in the fear supplies are running low.

BP said about 20 of its petrol stations were closed, with between 50 and 100 others running out of at least one grade of fuel.

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