Media Coverage Of Petrol Scarcity Helped Spark Panic Buying In UK

Report has it that petrol forecourts across the country have been packed since Friday, with drivers filling up their tanks as reports emerged that a shortage of tanker drivers was threatening supplies.

Panic-buying petrol across the country are the result of “hyped” stories about shortages in the media, a Tory council leader has said.

As a result of a massive increase in demand, stations saw their supplies run dry over the weekend, although Boris Johnson on Tuesday said the situation was stabilising.

Martin Tett, the leader of Buckinghamshire council, says media coverage at the start the crisis helped spark the panic buying in the first place.

Speaking on BBC News on Wednesday, Tett said: “Frankly, I hadn’t heard Labour or the Lib Dems flagging this as a petrol crisis until Saturday morning.

Many stations have run out of petrol due to a shortage of truck drivers linked to Brexit, along with panic buying. (Photo by Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Cars queue for fuel at a petrol station in London, United Kingdom on September 28, 2021. The UK has seen long queues formed in front of gas stations after the oil and petrol giant BP and Tesco Alliance announced that a

“I actually think this was difficult to foresee and to a large extent I think the media have a lot to take account for on this.

“I saw the news on Thursday night with the BBC running this incessantly as their top story and I said to my wife, ‘This is going to cause a panic, the way this is being hyped is going to cause a panic.'”

The leading story on the BBC News at Ten on 23 September was the energy crisis and expected increases in bills, with its second top story introducing the issue around petrol availability in the following way: "BP and Esso close some of their petrol stations because of a shortage of lorry drivers. Downing Street said people should buy fuel as normal."

The coverage was accompanied by a report from Sherborne in Dorset, in which BBC reporter John Kay described locals going "pump to pump... hunting for fuel in Sherborne. The town's only petrol station was expecting a delivery... but nothing turned up."

The report went on to outline that other pumps nearby did have fuel and that BP and other major firms said the shortages were restricted to isolated parts of the UK.

The next day, transport secretary Grant Shapps told BBC's Today programme he would move “heaven and Earth” so that petrol and other goods can continue moving around the country easily.