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Drivers panic buy at petrol pumps

14/ 9/2005

DRIVERS rushed to the pumps in Glossop this week over fears of threatened fuel protests.

Worried over shortages as a result of planned three-day demonstrations outside oil refineries, motorists started panic buying. Fuel protestors, angry at recent increases in the price of petrol and diesel, called for the government to cut taxes.

The manager of the Esso garage on High Street East, Glossop, said sales were up by around three times as much.

He anticipated running short by Tuesday evening with another delivery expected the following evening.

"If people hadn't panicked it would have been fine for a couple of days," he said.

The garage cordoned off part of its forecourt in an effort to streamline sales and prevent people entering the garage at the wrong entrance and causing accidents.

Drivers joining the lunchtime queues also felt people's reactions had made the situation worse.

Motorist Lindsay Johnson from Glossop said: "It's pathetic. We have just come back from holiday and I'm on the red so I have to get some, but people are just panicking over nothing."

And at Tesco's on Wren Nest Road, Jennifer Garnett-Ceesay said she had joined the queue as her five-year-old daughter, who is a chronic asthmatic, had a hospital appointment.

At the Shell service station sales were also up by three times as much.

But at around 8am on Tuesday a motorcyclist was knocked from his bike and manager Mark Carrington said the tense atmosphere may have contributed to the accident.

"When it's like this people lose their bearing, they've got to stay calm," he said.