Over the past week, several people have been in touch about difficulties in securing fuel from local forecourts and the impact of fewer HGV drivers.

I fully recognise genuine frustration about the impact on people’s daily lives. As it happens most of those who contacted me blamed Brexit. This may appeal to some, but does not reflect the facts. There are a complex combination of issues which have led to this problem, not least a pan-European driver shortage, with a similar shortfall in truckers in the United States. Information was published this week showing the proportion of EU drivers in HGVs on our roads this year is the same (at 11%) as in 2016.

There has been a long-standing steady decline in recruitment and retention of drivers of HGVs and the more specialist fuel tankers. Much has to do with the escalating cost of licensing and regulation for individual drivers, combined with gradual reduction and growing cost of roadside facilities, and increasing demands on drivers by companies requiring just in time delivery standards.

Covid accelerated the trends as countries imposed national lockdowns and restricted international travel, cross border freight declined, cutting opportunities for drivers, many of whom retired. At the same time, demand grew for home deliveries, so opportunities grew for HGV drivers to switch to more local deliveries – requiring less licence bureaucracy, offering better rates than before, and often improved lifestyle balance working closer to home.

But this exodus from the industry could not be readily replaced, as HGV tests for new licences were suspended due to the pandemic.

These issues exacerbated an already established driver shortage. We currently have a record number of vacancies in this country, so those recruiting HGV drivers have stiff competition to attract people. We cannot rely on cheap labour from the EU to fill the gap in years to come.

The most obvious impact of this shortage has been the scenes at forecourts over the past week. The driver shortage was only ever going to have a short-term effect on supply to a few areas. But with parallels to the increase in sales of loo paper at the start of lockdown last year, demand for fuel soared as motorists turned up to the pumps, anxious to fuel up.

Even if there were no shortage of drivers, the system could not have coped with the huge increase in demand by motorists filling up this week. There is no fuel shortage, but our system is designed around balancing deliveries with anticipated demand.

Once people feel confident they have enough fuel, demand should level out again. The Government is taking steps to increase delivery capacity in the short, medium and long term. Fuel supplies are getting through to forecourts across South Shropshire, so I urge people to consider others when going to fill up.