Cheshire Police say officers are struggling to get to work amid fuel crisis
Some local petrol stations have set aside pumps for emergency services
Staffordshire and Cheshire police departments have said that officers and staff are finding it difficult to get to work due to the ongoing fuel crisis.
Emergency crews in the area have been hit by heavy queues, while some police officers are struggling to get access to enough fuel to be able to drive to work.
James Thompson, Chairman of the Cheshire Police Federation, says some local petrol stations are helping:
"Luckily we haven’t seen any significant issues as of yet, obviously emergency service vehicles do have to fuel up at the same places that the public do. We don’t have petrol pumps in the backyards of police stations anymore.
But luckily some of our more local stations have been reserving pumps for emergency service vehicles."
Thompson also said the problem lies in there being a number of officers who are unable to get to work in their own vehicles:
"We have a number of officers who commute extremely long distances to come in and perform their shifts within Cheshire, and when they’re in their own vehicles they can’t use those pumps that are put to one side for those emergency services vehicles."
The current UK petrol shortage is due to there not being enough lorry drivers to supply fuel to stations across the country.
This news has encouraged some people to collect an excess amount of necessary fuel, which has lead to an increased demand for petrol that was already in limited supply.
The Government recently announced that the Army may be deployed to deliver fuel to stations and to help police the crisis.