The Government has defended its handling of the HGV driver shortage after fuel deliveries were unable to be made leaving some forecourts closed.
A "handful" of BP stations, and a small number of Esso-owned Tesco Alliance stations, were closed last Thursday due to a lack of delivery drivers, the BBC reports.
The UK is facing a shortage of up to 100,000 HGV drivers, which is impacting retail supply chains and leading to empty shelves.
The Government has announced changes to the HGV driver test in order to free up capacity for 50,000 additional tests per year.
However, while welcoming the measures in a letter to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Logistics UK and the British Retail Consortium said it will take time for the pool of available HGV drivers to reach a scale which matches demand.
Supermarket Iceland - which is about 100 drivers short – have also joined Morrisons and Ocado in calling for the Government to add HGV drivers to the list of shortage occupations, which would allow foreign workers to apply for skilled worker visas to fill the current gaps.
But, transport secretary Grant Shapps says he did not want UK lorry drivers to leave the industry by being "undercut" by cheaper EU labour.
He said there were "systemic problems" in the haulage industry that needed to be resolved, pointing out that the profession was "99% white male" with an average age of 55, facing poor conditions and wages.
The RHA says the industry has lost 20,000 European drivers because of Brexit, while the pandemic had forced 40,000 driver training tests to be cancelled.
