UK is faced with acute shortage of truck drivers for fuel deliveries across the country, a situation so bad that over 10 percent of petrol pumps have closed down owing to disrupted supplies.
According to the Road Haulage Association, the fuel sector is short of roughly 1,00,000 heavy duty drivers, a crisis made worse by the pandemic and Brexit.
Serpentine ques at fuel pumps are becoming more common and the government is working on a temporary visa scheme that will make it easier for foreign truck drivers to work in UK
As per the scheme, about 5,000 visas will likely be issued. The visas would be temporary. Long term measure on the anvil is to train up more drivers and speed up the backlog of driving tests. Also,, there is plan to train hundreds of Afghan refugees to fill vacancies.
