BOLTON'S petrol stations are running dry as the fuel blockade tightens its grip on the North-west.

Petrol stations throughout the borough have started putting up "Sold Out" signs and long queues have been forming at those with fuel supplies left.

And as deliveries dry up, spokesmen at petrol stations in the town said the situation would continue indefinitely.

The petrol shortage comes amid national protests about the sky-high fuel prices.

Massive blockades of picketers stopped tanker drivers making their deliveries from the country's biggest refinery in Stanlow, Cheshire, and from Trafford Park.

In Bolton over the weekend, queues of panicking motorists lay siege on filling stations. By Sunday morning many of the supplies at Bolton's major petrol stations had already dried up. The remainder predicted they would run dry by the end of today.

A spokesman at Astley Bridge, Asda, said: "We have run out of unleaded fuel and have had to put a sign up letting motorists know the situation. We expected a delivery on Saturday night which did not arrive. Now we have no idea when it will come. No one seems able to tell us anything.

"Our petrol deliveries come from Trafford, but the tankers are being blocked in. The pressure is now on us to find petrol, but after today we will not even have four star or diesel left. We are all going to come to a standstill." At Safeway in Harwood, the situation was the way. It is supplied by Elf, and a spokesman said: "We still have some petrol left but it is going like mad. The way people are coming in it is not going to last us the day.

"I have only ever seen this sort of demand on Budget days. We have telephoned for another tanker, but everything has been stopped."

The BP garage at Safeway on Wigan Road, ran out of unleaded petrol on Saturday night, while the nearby Shell garage on Beaumont Road, Bolton had also run dry.

Queues of desperate motorists lined up outside the Morrisons filling station off Chorley Old Road, Bolton, and a spokesman at the Mercury Garage on Manchester Road, Westhoughton, predicted there would be "panic buying while our last stocks remain". The Manchester Road Service Station ran out of petrol on Saturday night after manager Lal Patel was told his expected tanker delivery had been blocked.

On Saturday morning he had just 3,000 litres of fuel left and he rang up customers with contracts including Ring and Ride to make sure they could fill up before the pumps ran dry.

Travelled

He said: "Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it. It's just one of those things I've got to put up with."

One motorist, Laura Kennerley, travelled into Bolton from Middlewich, Cheshire. She said: "I drive a Nova which takes four star petrol.

"But when I left the house I knew I wouldn't have enough to get me back home again. I started looking for a petrol station, and it took me three or four goes to actually find one.

"It was quite worrying. But I can understand why the protest is happening -- in fact protesters have my support." Another described how last night he drove around four petrol stations, but without luck. Unable to fill up in Bolton, this morning he was forced to queue for 40 minutes at a service station on the M62.

Darryl Hayworth, whose garage business is based on Newport Road, Bolton, also runs a recovery wagon, and told the BEN, yesterday morning, he had already been called out to two motorists who had been left stranded without petrol.

A number of police officers from Bolton were taken off their normal duties today to help colleagues who were policing the protests at the Trafford Park fuel depot.