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• Billy Jean's Cafe, nestling in a slip road off the A55 at Pentre Halkyn, North Wales is one of the few remaining traditional transport cafes; and it is threatened with closure.
The cafe is a useful stop on the road between Chester and Holyhead, but it has limited parking space so drivers have to park on the road outside.
A meeting of Clwyd County Council's highway operations sub committee on 12 February proposed a clearway order, which would ban trucks from stopping and cripple Billy Jean's business. A decision has been deferred until there is "adequate provision for HGV parking on the A55", according to a council spokeswoman.
NO PROVISION
The Welsh Office says: "When the A55 was built we made no provision for HGVs, preferring to leave this to the commercial sector." Today, according to the Welsh Office, a service station at Bodelwyddan, south of Rhyl, offers HGV parking, and petrol giant Shell says its service station at Northop Hall, east of Colwyn Bay, provides overnight parking — but only for four HGVs.
Billy Jean's charges E3 a night to park, and that includes breakfast.
Last year more than 600 drivers signed a petition to keep the cafe alive. On the day that CM visited drivers were happy to explain why: "Everywhere there is a decent transport cafe councils want to close it," says Mike Freeth who drives for Plevin Transport of Hyde, Cheshire. "Little Chefs won't accept lorries; we are expected to adhere to our hours, but where do we stop?"
DETERIORATED
Freeth has been driving for 30 years and says the truckstop situation has deteriorated since the advent of Little Chefs: "They've bought up good transport cafes and slapped up notices — no lorries allowed." He stops at Billy Jean's about three times a month while on trips from Cheshire to South Wales. It offers what drivers are short of, he says, "good home cooking at reasonable prices".
The most popular meal is the full breakfast which is served all day. Sheena Barritt, one of five part-time staff working for cafe owners Bill and Jean Morgan, says: "From 7.30am to lpm we serve more than 100 meals at an average cost of £2.60."
Her colleague Rose West says that the council should build a layby outside the cafe: "It would cost very little and keep five people in a job," she says, adding, "there's not a lot of part-time work for women around here."
When CM visited the cafe at lunch time there were 10 lorries parked on the road but despite the slip road being two-way (the only one of its kind in the UK, according to a local policeman) most traffic was heading east, passing the cafe with room to spare.
PREDICAMENT
Other drivers explained the predicament they would face if Billy Jean's closed: "I run from Queens Ferry to Anglesey and there's nowhere on the route apart from caravans," says Fred Sherratt, who drives for Lo-Cost Food Stores and eats at Billy Jean's three times a week.
"You can't sit and relax in those caravans — instead you have tea slopping all over the wagon," he says.
John Simmons of Ed Weetman Transport has a daily run from Stafford into North Wales and says the cafe is the only one of its kind along the route. "I signed the petition," he says, "the food's good, the portions are big and the tea's strong."
Bill Morgan denies that the cafe represents a hazard: "We've been here five years and there have been no accidents," he says. "The only hazard is cars speeding by at 70mph."
A Happy Eater up the road only lets truck drivers in to sell them diesel; meanwhile the layby caravans thrive. Morgan is bitter: "It seems that's the sort of grotty facility lorry drivers are expected to have, with nowhere to have a wash."
He believes that it will be at least six months before the fate of Billy Jean's is decided.
Morgan has been fined £450 for putting four signs on the A55. Now one sign, less than a metre square, advertises the cafe, the pub next door, the local B&B and the garage.
STEADY LIVING
When Morgan took over the site in 1986 it had not operated as a transport cafe since 1951; it was once a stagecoach stop. "We don't make a fortune, but it's a steady living," he says. "I'd love to be able to charge 23 or 24 for a breakfast, but there wouldn't be any customers."
Billy Jean's is open five days a week from 07:00hrs-18:00hrs, and until lunchtime on Saturdays. It closes all day Sunday because there is so little traffic and also between Christmas Eve and the day following New Year. But for a week before Christmas drivers can tuck in to a turkey dinner with all the trimmings and a slice of pudding for £2.60. "It's our way of saying thank you to the drivers who give us their custom all year round," says Morgan.
0 by Patric Cunnane.