Pumps still running dry and staff receiving abuse, PRA says

Petrol stations are seeing unprecedented demand despite additional deliveries of fuel and there have been instances of staff receiving abuse, The Petrol Retailers Association said on Thursday.

"PRA members are reporting that whilst they are continuing to take further deliveries of fuel, this is running out quicker than usual due to unprecedented demand," said PRA Executive Director Gordon Balmer, who said he was still hearing of verbal and physical abuse against gas station staff.

"In a PRA member survey today of 1,200 sites across the UK including motorway service areas, 52% of sites have reported having both petrol and diesel in stock, 21% have either one grade in stock and 27% are dry."

In a chaotic week where fights broke out at gas stations and people filled up old water bottles with petrol, Ministers have repeatedly said the crisis was easing, though they ordered soldiers on Wednesday to start driving fuel tankers.

"The situation is stabilising across the country albeit there's obviously still high demand for fuel," Policing Minister Kit Malthouse told Sky News on Friday. "Let's hope that over the next few days that eases as tanks fill."

While more than two thousand petrol stations were still dry on Thursday, the shortage of truck drivers has started to disrupt deliveries to pharmacies, and farmers warned a lack of butchers could lead to a massive cull of pigs.

"The whole supply chain has been impacted from inbound wholesale depot supply down to outward depot deliveries to pharmacies," said a spokeswoman for the association which represents large pharmacy operators.

Transport ministry data indicated that motor traffic had decreased by 6 percentage points on Monday from the previous week to the lowest volume on a non-holiday Monday since July 12. England ended Covid restrictions on July 19.

Besides fuel and medicine, the farming industry warned that hundreds of thousands of pigs may have to be culled within weeks unless the government issues visas to allow more butchers into the country.

Lizzie Wilson, policy services officer at the National Pig Association (NPA), said the shortage of butchers meant processors were operating at 25 per cent reduced capacity.

As a result mature pigs ready for processing are backing-up on farms, causing welfare issues.

"There's about 120,000 pigs sat on farm currently that should have already been slaughtered, butchered, be within the food chain and eaten by now," said Wilson.

Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union, said a cull of up to 150,000 pigs was "potentially a week, ten days away".

An acute shortage of butchers and slaughterers in the meat processing industry has been exacerbated by Covid-19 and Britain's post-Brexit immigration policy, which has restricted the flow of east European workers.