Panic buying of fuel beginning to grip the county (From Oxford Mail)

Panic buying of fuel beginning to grip the county

12:37pm Thursday 29th March 2012 in News By Josh Barrie

Petrol stations across the county are being run dry by a surge of panic buying following the threat of a strike by tanker drivers.

Yesterday many petrol stations reported that Oxfordshire was not seeing a surge in motorists topping up their tanks, unlike other areas.

However, later in the evening drivers were beginning to queue up at various petrol stations - particularly in the market towns and villages.

And that has continued today, with reports of queues in central Oxford at Oxpens, the Tescos in Abingdon, Bicester and Cowley, Marcham services and at several service stations in West Oxfordshire.

At Station Road in Shipton-under-Wychwood, both diesel and petrol supplies completely ran out by eight o'clock this morning.

Anthony Johnson, the station manager, said: “People are panicking, they didn't know what was going on. Yesterday, the garage here was like a roundabout. It was just a constant stream of cars.”

At Tesco in Cowley, duty manager Becky Greenwood reported queues of four of five cars deep, despite the station having 16 pumps available.

She said: “We ran out late in the evening last night, but we have fuel tankers coming in. People are panic buying but we shouldn't run out because we have an automated system.”

And an Oxfordshire taxi driver reported major queues and disruption at petrol stations throughout Abingdon.

After seeing queues overflowing onto the main road, he said: “Cars are piling into stations and are blocking up the entrance. I wouldn't be surprised if the police were called to oversee the congestion.”