Those asking “why buy water?” Water is very much an essential and while it’s not an issue likely to be affected by corona virus there are several other things that can happen which can affect supply.
I’m sure those in certain flooded areas are perhaps using more bottled water than usual, the storm has affected supply in a few rural areas and bad weather generally can affect supply.
Also wrt Brexit there were/are real concerns about the chemicals needed to purify our drinking water are made/produced mainly in Europe and NOBODY (I personally asked my Mp several times about this and even Scottish
Water) seemed to have a clue if that issue had/has been addressed.
Scottish water are actually doing work in my area at the moment and we’ve been told not to use the taps for drinking water during certain hours while this work is being done.
I’m housebound and disabled and have pretty much no support network so I was very glad I have plenty of bottled water in anyway.
Prepping is not panicking, it’s being sensibly organised “just in case” my parents have almost always lived rurally and dad having been army was more aware than most of how ILL prepared this country is!
Plus they’re both the dc of very poor parents who lived through the difficulties of wwii and rationing and various shortages due to strikes etc.
They have always made sure they have good stocks of non-perishables/long life stuff in.
When beast from the east hit we were snowed in for 2 weeks, or rather dd was! Even snow ploughs couldn’t get through at first. Even when our street was clear the local supermarket didn’t get its stocks back to normal levels for about 6 weeks after - and that was just a few days of predicted snow!
“So the "Using up the brexit stockpile" lot are just simply proving that that particular panic buy was pointless?” Quite the opposite! Their stocks are being used - that IS the point!
And even with a phased exit prices may well go up quite a bit so for those of us on a tight budget it helps make that not quite so painful.