Long queues have formed at petrol stations in Bangor and across North Wales as drivers attempt to fill up on fuel amid fears of a supply shortage.
Drivers were seen queuing at the Tesco Express petrol station in Bangor early on Friday morning, with other petrol stations reporting to be extremely busy. Some petrol stations were deploying staff to manage the queues.
The UK government has said people should carry on buying petrol as normal, despite supply problems that closed a small number of stations.
Two major supermarkets have said there are no problems with petrol supplies in Wales after fears about a shortage of HGV drivers led to queues at stations.
Tesco said it had a “good availability” with deliveries arriving every day.
Asda said that none of its Welsh petrol stations were affected and were fully operational.
It is estimated that the UK is short of about 100,000 HGV drivers – with gaps made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said that he would not rule anything out to resolve the problem, including deploying the army to drive petrol tankers, but played down the idea that loosening border restrictions would fix labour shortages.
He said that workers from eastern Europe had undercut the wages of British lorry drivers for many years, that it was “wrong” to blame Brexit for the shortage of HGV operators and that Britain’s departure from the European Union had allowed the government to process new recruits into the industry more quickly.
There are about 8,380 petrol stations in the UK, according to the Petrol Retailers Association. Of these, about 1% are believed to be closed at the moment.
