Petrol sale bar includes power repair workers

Press, 16 April 1979, Page 7

Petrol sale bar includes power repair workers

PA Wellington Electricity, gas. and water board repair men on emergency call-out could find themselves stranded because they are not exempted from the petrol sales restrictions or earless days scheme. Electricity suppliers, who assumed their vehicles would be classed as an “essential user” under the regulations, have discovered they are prohibited from buying petrol at week-ends except at the descretion of the police. They said yesterday this could mean problems if repairmen called out to attend an emergency were delayed because ' they needed petrol. The position would be worse in country areas, where repairmen needed to travel long distances. Under the first petrolrestriction regulations issued by the Government at the end of February, the services were included in the exemption list. In the latest set of regulations, however, the repair men are absent. The secretary of the Electrical Supply Authorities Association (Mr A.

H. Heir) described the situation yeasterday as “a ridiculous state of affairs.” He said the association had written to the Minister of Energy (Mr Birch) asking that the anomaly be removed. “The present regulations mean that if you have a sick cat, the vet can come immediately. If you have a power cut at the weekend, you may have to wait to have it repaired because the faultman may need to get a permit to get petrol to get there.” Service vehicles of the Ministry of Energy’s Electricity Division are also excluded from the essential users list. A divisional spokesman said yesterday there could be some inconvenience as a result but “only under pretty extreme conditions” would it interfere with service operations. However, both the national and local electricity suppliers said the introduction of earless days would restrict the industry’s ability to repair faults unless their repairmen were included again on the list of “essential users.”