| Early morning motorists were shocked to discover the forecourt at Sainsbury’s, at Claypotts and Tesco Express, on Dalhousie Road, closed off to motorists after fuel pumps ran dry over the weekend.
Orange cones blocked the path to the pumps with no notification of when the forecourts are likely to reopen as the strike by Shell tanker drivers entered its last day.
Forecourts across the country saw long queues during the weekend with 30% more fuel sold than normal.
The Scottish Government said last night that 35 stations out of 960, around 3.5%, had either run dry or were without some fuel.
“It’s absolutely shocking,” one concerned motorist said this morning.
“I drove around for about half an hour trying to get petrol only to find either huge queues or the garages closed and with cones littering the forecourts.
“Everyone was told not to panic-buy but it looks as though that’s exactly what people have done so now we’re all in trouble.”
The latest fuel problems come after talks between Unite and managers of two firms that deliver fuel to Shell garages broke down after 10 hours of negotiations last week.
Despite the “no panic” message, garages across Dundee had this morning either completely run dry or begun limiting purchases to £20 per motorist.
A spokesman for Morrisons sympathised with Broughty Ferry’s two dry forecourts and said the problem was industry-wide.
“We have seen high levels of demand this week but we are expecting to receive deliveries to our forecourts,” he said.
“However we would ask that to avoid the risk of shortages and unnecessary queuing, people are sensible when purchasing their fuel.”
Alan Stirling, manager at the Tesco outlet on Dalhousie Road, confirmed the garage’s pumps had run dry yesterday afternoon.
“Up until yesterday there hadn’t been any problems but then, as the weekend went on, the fuel shortages started to really affect us,” he said.
“It’s not been caused by motorists panic-buying. Sales have been up a bit over the last few days but everyone has been pretty sensible about it all — it’s just the knock-on effect of the delivery drivers striking. I don’t know when we’ll get more fuel — hopefully tomorrow — but there will be sites that take priority over us, like emergency services and motorway service stations, because it would cause bigger problems if they ran dry.
“We aren’t too worried about it though because the strike ends tomorrow and the petrol stations should get back to normal within 24 hours of that.” |
