Bus services have faced disruption - not by running low on petrol, but by getting stuck in the gridlock as everyone queues to fill up.

Norman Kemp, who runs the Nu Venture bus company, based at Aylesford, said: "I haven't seen today's figures yet, but my gut instinct is that there's been no surge of passengers."

Drivers were queuing along Tonbridge Road, Maidstone, for fuel

All his staff were able to report for duty and the company has fuel to continue to provide its services.

But he said: "The serious problem we are facing is congestion due to motorists queuing at those garages that have fuel.

He said: "The queue at a garage in Marden on Saturday was so big that we had to curtail our bus service at the station.

"Today, the queue from a garage at the old civic centre in Strood is trailing right back across the bridge into Rochester, adding about an hour to journeys there."

Christian Obray for Arriva bus company, had a similar message. "We are not experiencing any concerns or problem related to fuel issues ourselves," he said.

"The only disruption we are currently seeing is coming from gridlocked traffic on roads queuing at petrol stations."

The Stagecoach bus company said it also had the staff and fuel it needed, with services only affected by traffic congestion.

Meanwhile Tim Lambkin, the boss of Travelmasters which runs a fleet of buses delivering children to Sittingbourne and Sheppey schools, said there was no problem "at the moment."

The company had a delivery to its Sheerness depot last Tuesday and two further deliveries were booked for this week.

But he said: "I knew a problem was coming. Normally we can place an order for 15,000 litres two days before we need it. But two weeks ago I was told it was going to take 10 days. So we placed our orders early. Hopefully, that will mean we are OK."

He added: "We checked with all staff this morning and most are OK so hopefully there will be no problem there, either."

He said: "I am hoping it will die down when the panic-buying stops and we can return to normal by the end of this week."

But he said the temporary increased cost of the fuel could have an impact on his business.

He said: "We will have to look quite closely at all our costs if service levels are to be maintained as fuel rose by 5% overnight on Monday last week before the panic buying and a massive 30% since the first lockdown in April 2020."

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