Motorists could be forgiven for thinking it was an early ‘April Fuel’ as word spread that unleaded petrol was on sale at a Bradford supermarket for a knock-down 12.9 pence a litre.

But late-night queues quickly built up at Asda’s Rooley Lane store as customers found it was for real.

Some were content to just fill their tanks at the automated card payment ‘fast lane’ pumps. Others also brought jerry cans and other containers with them to take full advantage.

The length of the jam, which at one point snaked out into Rooley Lane itself, even drew police attention as the situation continued until after midnight yesterday.

Jonathan Dixon, 25, a self-employed network technician, of Great Horton Road, Bradford, said: “We got a tip-off from a friend saying Asda had made a mistake.

“Unfortunately my car is diesel but a friend went down and phoned up saying it was actually that price. So they filled up their car – they got nearly 33 litres for £4.”

Mr Dixon said he and a few friends went down to the petrol station to witness the queues reaching back into Rooley Lane from the supermarket’s access road.

He said: “There were cars round the block, completely out of the Asda car park and actually starting to jam the road up outside, and this was at about 11.30pm.

“My friends just couldn’t believe that the mistake had happened.

“We were wondering how long it was going to last – we saw the police drive by once or twice, and they were just looking at what the jam was.

“In the end, about an hour-and-a-half later, some people came across from the site, I guess they were the managers, and they said ‘look, there’s something wrong, stop what you are doing’ and they just pulled the emergency stop."

An Asda spokesman yesterday admitted that human error was to blame with a decimal point being put in the wrong place as staff programmed the four automatic pumps to allow the filling station to operate after the cashiers’ kiosk was closed.

It meant unleaded was sold at 12.9p per litre, rather than 129.9p from 10.30pm on Wednesday until 12.20am yesterday when the pumps were eventually shut down after the alarm was raised.

The spokesman said: “We’re well known for having the lowest prices in town, but clearly this was a mistake.”

  • Read the full story in Friday's T&A