Garages have noticed an increase in demand after tanker drivers voted to take strike action over safety standards and terms and conditions.

Fiona Sutton, who works in the BP garage in The Pippin, Calne, said: “It’s been manic all day.

“I’m working a double shift, so I’ve been here since 5.30am, and it just hasn’t stopped all day. It’s been crazy, and motorists have told us it’s exactly the same in Chippenham.”

A Morrisons’ source in Wiltshire, who asked not to be identified, said petrol stations may become ‘government controlled sites’ during any strike, meaning only emergency vehicles could use them and that police may patrol the forecourts.

“We don’t have any deals or offers on this week at the forecourt I’m working at and we’re still going to sell half a million pounds’ worth of petrol just in this store this week,” he said.

“That’s a lot more than we usually make.

“Now Francis Maude is telling people to fill jerry cans, but we have strict rules about that. People have been showing up with old chemical containers and we’ve just been turning them away. It’s been mayhem all day.”

He said a delivery was expected but supplies of diesel had been running low.

Meanwhile companies are concerned that the threatened strike could leave their lorries stranded.

A spokesman for Hams Transport, based at Hopton Industrial Estate in Devizes, said: “We don’t do any long-haul routes but we still need to fill up every day.

"We don’t have any in-house storage for fuel and our drivers have to fill up on the road.

“If there is no fuel available they will be stranded but we are optimistic that the Army will cover things.

“Fuel has become one of the largest per centages of our costs, about 25 per cent, but I have spoken with another haulier for whom it is 50 per cent.”

Farmers will be among those hardest hit if the dispute escalates into a strike because they are dependent on diesel and petrol to power a range of farm machinery, said Christopher Musgrave, who manages 7,000 acres in the Marlborough area.

Mr Musgrave said farmers had probably stocked up with fuel but he said a prolonged strike could be disastrous for the agriculture industry.

Modern farms, he said, were entirely dependent on fuel for their tractors, combine harvesters and other farm handling equipment as well as the grain driers that had to be pressed into use extensively last summer because of the wet harvest time.

“We have done quite a lot of our spring work but as we go forwards we can only hope that if there is a strike it will not be for too long,” said Mr Musgrave.

He said the annual fuel bill for the estates he runs came to “a big six-figure amount” every year.

Many farmers and their staff, he said, also depended on central heating fuel for their homes as many live some distance from mains gas supplies.

People who use central heating oil, including the hundreds of members of the Burbage-based BEAM buying group, would also be concerned about getting supplies during a strike.

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