Published: Thursday, 24th April, 2008 10:00am

'Dry zone' fear for drivers

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GOING NOWHERE: Panic-stricken motorists queue at Burgh's Tesco petrol station.

helensburgh"s only filling station ran out of fuel this week as divers fearing a petrol drought rushed to the pumps.

The panic buying was sparked by the threat of strike action at Grangemouth oil refinery - which supplies 10 per cent of the UK"s fuel. Huge tailbacks formed in East Clyde Street as drivers queued outside the Tesco Express garage. Despite ordering in extra supplies to cope with demand, the petrol station had to turn customers away on Sunday after running out of unleaded, super unleaded and diesel.

And supplies of unleaded petrol were drained for a second time on Monday.

The scare highlighted the vulnerability of Helensburgh and Lomond when faced with a fuel shortage.

One local driver fumed: 'If anywhere is going to suffer, it"s here - because we lack properly resourced filling stations. The situation is ridiculous.'

Nigel Millar, chairman of Helensburgh Community Council, agreed the lack of filling stations in Helensburgh had left the town vulnerable.

He added: 'At times like this when there is panic buying, having only one petrol station is a problem. The community council have written to all the main fuel providers asking if they would be interested in opening up an additional petrol station in the town because the current fuel monopoly puts us in a very vulnerable position when you get a situation like this.

'They have put all their eggs in one basket and if they run out of petrol then that"s it for the whole of Helensburgh.'

Reader John Turnbull, took pictures of the queue forming outside the filling station on Monday evening.

He said: 'The tailback went as far as the traffic lights on Sinclair Street and beyond.'

It was a similar story at the Auto Point garage in Garelochhead where staff were forced to put a £15 cap on fuel to ensure there was enough to go round.

Speaking on Tuesday, co-owner Ian Smith said: 'There is definitely a panic on. There have been queues forming outside. We"ve had to put a cap on how much people can buy so that we"ve got enough to go round and our customers aren"t disappointed but we still sold out this morning. We"re waiting more in tomorrow and we"re expecting that to go pretty fast.

'It"s just been non stop. I"d say we"ve been about four times as busy as normal. The phones are always going with people calling up to check if we"ve still got fuel. Everybody wants to make sure they are topped up because people have got to get to their work and nobody wants to run out of petrol half way down the road. There will be a problem if this strike goes ahead.'

Talks aimed at preventing the Grangemouth walkout were continuing yesterday as we went to press. Up to 1,200 workers could strike on Sunday and Monday over proposed changes to the pension scheme. The company have begun shutting down the refinery, which processes 210,000 barrels of oil a day, as a safety measure.

A Tesco spokeswoman insisted fuel reserves would hold out if motorists did not panic buy.