‘I daren’t go any distance’: how are people coping with UK fuel shortages?
High fuel prices and shortages at the pumps continue to affect motorists, with those in rural areas with poor transport links particularly hard hit.
They come amid a wave of protests by environmental activists blockading fuel distribution terminals. A spokesperson for the UK Petroleum Industry Association sought to minimise the impact of the protests, describing the disruptions as “localised and short-term only”.
Three people speak about how fuel shortages and rising prices at the pumps are affecting them.
Diesel shortages have forced 65-year-old Robin Hunter, who runs a national car delivery service in Lincolnshire, to stop booking jobs for the first time in more than two decades in the business. “I’ve never had to cancel work before because I can’t get hold of [fuel]. I’ve always managed to muddle through,” he says. He doesn’t want to risk booking jobs saying he “doesn’t know when the situation will get better”: he visited five local supermarkets at the weekend trying to get diesel, to no avail.
“It was a bit of a job getting the last tank on Friday,” he says. “I daren’t go any distance – I was meant to go to Bedfordshire. With half a tank I’d get there, but would I get back? Or risk getting stuck in a compromising position on the side of the road? I may have a valuable car on board which you can’t leave unattended.”
The 65-year-old has also noticed the price of diesel increasing. Hunter paid £1.86 per litre for diesel last Friday, when he drove 300 miles moving four cars. “I managed to find fuel at the local garage in the next village to me. I tried supermarkets first because the price is more competitive,” he says, adding that he paid £1.49 at Sainsbury’s last month. “Diesel is used by working people – lorries, vans,
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