OPEN ALL HOURS
Page 37
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Britain's motorway service areas may never close, but the levels of service they offer HGV drivers vary enormously. Karen Miles reports
All of the 44 Government-designated itorway service areas in England, Aland and Wales provide facilities for vers 24 hours a day, seven days a ek. Beyond that, their diversity is 3siderable.
rake some extremes. Blue Boarrated Rothersthorpe on the MI ilogetically says that it just does not re room for parked heavy goods fides. Overnight parking is not wed, and if an operator ignores the ns he faces a £25 fine.
Dri the other hand, Kenning-operated derton on the M61 welcomes up to lorries a night.
2harges, facilities and the welcome vers receive all vary, too.
erestingly, so did responses to CM's -vey.
-jranada, which runs 14 services barely naged to answer from its head office. ormation related to it mostly appears riks to the Freight Transport
sociation.
Dthers, especially THF, Welcome ?.ak and Westmoreland, which just ?.rates Tebay West, seemed very m to let operators know What they can r.
'lost service operators offer the useful .vice of trailer interchange facilities. IF's Fleet on the M3 and Keele on the i offer the service free. So does lcome Break's Hartshead Moor on the i2 and Rank's Hilton Park based on the
For most of the other services the fee 'arrangeable", varying from a minimal ;t to well over £15.
Dnly THF's M1 Newport Pagnell, thersthorpe and Watford Gap on the . operated by Blue Boar, THF's rdano on the M5, Corley on the M6 i Burtonwood on the M62, and !stmoreland operated Tebay West on IVI6 do not allow trailer interchange. k universal complaint from operators is .t there just are not enough services on 2,700km motorway network. The partment of Transport promises that it .rying to rectify the problems —
especially in the South East. Four services should appear around the M25 and one on the M11 within three years.
Due to be announced soon are the results of searches for new sites on the present and proposed M40 and the M56 near Liverpool.
Meanwhile, the service operators themselves are trying to fill the gaps by building non-Government-designated service areas just off the motorway network. Recent ones include Westmoreland's Tebay near Junction 38 of the M6 and in two weeks Granada opens a new area at Newbury on the A34, just off the M4.