Ready for a fuel shortage

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Any future one will probably look the same: brief, patchy and mostly caused by all of us turning up at once. So the plan is about not needing to join in.

November 2026: diesel passed £2 a litre in October on the RAC’s figures. That is a price problem and not a shortage. What it means and what to do.

The half-tank habit

Fill up when the gauge reaches half, not when the light comes on. That’s it. It costs nothing extra over a year, and it means that on the day the queues start you have 200 miles in hand and can stay at home feeling well-organised.

In winter this is worth doing anyway. Half a tank is also several hours of engine heat if you’re stuck on a closed motorway.

Storing petrol at home

You’re allowed to. The limits, from the Health and Safety Executive:

• Up to 30 litres at home without telling anyone
• In proper fuel containers only: plastic up to 10 litres each, metal up to 20 litres each
• In a garage or shed, never in the house

My honest advice is that most people shouldn’t bother. Petrol goes off in a few months, the fumes are the dangerous part, and a can in the garage is a fire you’ve pre-arranged. If you do keep a 5-litre can for the mower, that’s plenty. Never fill containers that weren’t made for fuel. In 2021 people were photographed filling water bottles.

During a shortage

• Don’t top up a tank that’s over half full
• Combine journeys and cancel the ones that were only ever optional
• Share lifts for school and work
• Check which local forecourts have fuel before driving round them all
• Keep enough in the tank for one essential trip you haven’t planned
• If you’re a carer or key worker, ask your employer what the arrangement is

Make the tank go further

Soft tyres waste fuel. Checking them takes four minutes.

If you heat with oil or LPG

About a million and a half UK homes do. You already know the rule: order early. Don’t let the tank go below a quarter in winter, and order in late summer when prices and lead times are both kinder. A tank gauge that you can read from the kitchen stops you finding out the hard way on Christmas Eve.

If you drive electric

A fuel shortage is the one week of the year your neighbours ask you about the car. Be gracious. Keep it above half anyway, for the same reason as everyone else.

The rest of the house

Fuel trouble means delivery trouble a few days later. A week’s buffer of food is the other half of this plan.

Source: HSE, storing petrol safely at home.