Officials have repeatedly urged the public not to panic buy, but this has fallen on deaf ears, with pictures emerging over the weekend showing people filling jerry cans and scuffles breaking out.
Forecourts across the UK have been forced to close as drivers fill their tanks amid distribution problems.
Officials have repeatedly urged the public not to panic buy, but this has fallen on deaf ears, with pictures emerging over the weekend showing people filling jerry cans and scuffles breaking out.
There are mounting calls for key workers to be prioritized amid fears vital services could be affected.
Boris Johnson is considering calling in soldiers to deliver fuel to petrol stations as pumps ran dry after days of panic buying.
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Teacher Mark Cornell, 39, from Faversham, told the i: “We’re potentially in the situation where because people are panic buying – I don’t want to be scaremongering, of course, – but basically, you could potentially be in the situation where if people don’t stop panic buying, or if there isn’t something, maybe some key worker priority or something, you could end up with schools, not being able to open.
“Fingers crossed that, you know, it will iron itself out, and people see some common sense, and it will all be okay.”
Gordon Balmer, executive director of the Petrol Retailers Association, told LBC some petrol brands are seeing as many as 90% of their sites running dry.
He said: “We did a straw poll yesterday morning of a number of our members who have around 200 sites between them.
“Fifty percent of those we spoke to said their sites were dry, and some actually said 90 percent of their sites were dry, so it is on a company-by-company basis and almost on a brand-by-brand basis because some oil companies are still relatively okay in terms of deliveries.”
When asked about possible Government plans to grant temporary visas to get more HGV drivers, Mr. Balmer said: “We are a fuel retailing trade association, not a logistics company, but I would have thought anything like that is going to help, but from what I hear maybe that’s not enough, so I know the Government is looking at other measures such as drafting in military drivers.
“What we’re hoping is a lot of people have filled up over the weekend, a lot of people only fill up once a month, that might give us some respite to start to replenish stocks over the next few days.”
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has refused to rule out requesting military assistance after queues for the pumps continued across the country on the weekend.
Mr. Shapps has already backed down over his reluctance to import foreign labour to solve the HGV driver shortage by creating 5,000 three-month visas to bring in extra haulers to address delivery pressures.
The Cabinet minister told the BBC the move would fix the “100 to 200” fuel tanker driver shortfall, as he urged motorists to be “sensible” and only fill up when needed to help alleviate the queues.