New plans on way For service areas
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GHER STANDARDS of food, value for money, cleanliness The first step in these iprovements took place last eek, with a cut in petrol ices at service areas of 2p per lion on average. Unfortunely, this reduction went unrticed in many instances, ice it roughly coincided with OPEC increase of 4p per lion.
Transport Secretary illiam Rodgers said the trot price cuts "are designed stimulate greater competiIn between (motorway sere) operators and to lead to rther price reductions."
The removal of rental paid fuel turnover by the service operators to the Governmt has led to the petrol price pp, but the price of diesel ci seems likely to remain changed, as most motorway es are made by agency card.
prime aim of the commit was to bring motorway petrol prices closer to those charged at normal roadside garages.
The Department of Transport said that, following the Prior Committee recommendations, discussions are under way on arrangements for handling breakdown and repair services on the motorways.
Ways of improving facilities for coaches and for better signposting within service areas are also being examined.
The Prior Committee recommended that distances between service areas should not exceed 30 miles, but did not favour adhering rigidly to 25-mile spacing, as in the past.
Priority is therefore to be given to planning new areas on existing motorways where there are gaps of more than 30 miles.
Overall, the Prior Committee came out in favour of a more flexible approach to motorway service areas, and encourages experimentation in new designs. One major operator of service areas told CM that his company broadly welcomed the interim conclusions of the report. He pointed out that the basic design of service areas had not changed much since the first one was opened 20 or so years ago.
But he was against opening service areas with less than 25 miles between them — traffic was not usually sufficient to justify this, he felt. Already, a vacant site on the eastern section of the M62 had not been bid for by operators due to the low traffic flow on this part of the motorway.
With a new service area costing about E2m, the spokesman said any new sites had to be carefully researched for economic viability.