I went to fill up my two 5 litre petrol cans up at an Esso garage on Filton Road, Bristol and the the attendant refused to serve me.
On questioning him further he told me that it was illegal to fill two 5 litre petrol cans and if he allowed it and was caught the garage would lose their licence.
So I pointed to my sign-written van politely advised his that I ran a gardening business and this was a necessary way to purchase and also never had a problem anywhere else. He then advised me that I'd need to apply to Bristol City Council for a special licence! Still remaining polite I said okay if I fill up one can now, pull out of the forecourt and back onto it and fill the other can up then that would be okay would it? And guess what he said, Yes that would be fine...
Has anyone else come across this kind of stupidity and is there a new or existing law about filling petrol cans and what kind of licence am I supposed to get from the council?
Would really be interested in people views on this, just seems to be big business and councils doing all they can to annoy and inconvenience small business. I mean I can go fill up my van or car in one go why not 2 petrol cans!
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I've been refused permission to fill before, as the station had a "1 use" policy, so I filled up with diesel, had to go in, pay for it, come out again, and fill my jerry cans.
perhaps worth ringing the Esso helpline to get clarity.
I phoned Bristol City Council pollution control team about this and apparently they think the attendant was over zealous! I was told that if you store over litres of fuel then you need a licence and proper storage which is pretty common sense really. Still won't go back to an ESSO garage on principal, not that they really care about 10 litres of fuel, lol...
ummm, was once filling my 3rd of 4 20 litre jerry cans with petrol (i wasn't hoarding, it was for a boat) when the pump was switched off on me.
when i fill my petrol cans, i do it inside the vans side door, so no one really knows what i'm doing. i'm aware of the rules (which are silly as far as i'm concerned) and i just avoid any discussion by being. ummm...... sneaky.
Stuart Diprose Land-Scape.co.uk said:
Until you are involved in an accident and your van catches fire with 80L of fuel inside....
For carriage, you also need to follow your commercial van insurance company's rules.
Normally you will not be insured if you carry more than 10L of fuel. That fuel must be in approved contained SECURED within the vehicle (ie not loose, so they can fly about in event of impact). Flambéed ...anyone :-( ?
If you carry more than that, different rules apply, insurance will be significantly higher and I believe you will need to display diamond Hazard stickers on your vehicle.
From HSE manual
Petrol filling stations usually have to abide by a licence condition to allow only 'suitable' containers to be filled. This is usually interpreted as metal containers up to a maximum size of 23 litres or plastic containers up to a maximum size of 5 litres. A licence condition has the same effect as a legal requirement. The licence condition does not limit how many containers one customer may fill.
Trev
nice find trev, but there is internal company policy as well (but at least it isn't illegal)
unlikely, when we used to fill the boat it was a 5 minute drive to the petrol station, then all the fuel went into the boat, but for work i tend to carry 2 5 litre plastic cans - one of 4// and one of 2//, although i do sometimes carry 10 litres of diesel. when a can gets tired it gets retired as a water scoop or fertiliser container etc.
i'd be more worried about gas canisters ;)
Richard Thornton said:
I would fill up at Sainsburys and Tescos i always when filling cans leave them in the vehicle then nobody bothers...I would never carry more than 20 ltrs of petrol anyway not safe. I have a friend who is a chief Fire officer he says extremely rare for fire with cans only when morons try and light their BBQ,s with them problems start...normally resulting in no eyebrows and setting their hair on fire!! Regular occurrence he tells me.
Stuart Diprose Land-Scape.co.uk said:
I've had three garages tell me the same thing up here in Norfolk. One threatened to push the emergency stop button over the forecourt speaker if I didn't stop immediately!
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