Senrice area gaps 'harm road safe
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• Current Department of Transport policy towards motorway service areas in South-East England is bad for the economy, the environment and road safety, according to the Freight Transport Association.
It has launched a campaign to persuade the DTp to bring South-East motorway service area provision up to the standard of the rest of the country, where there is an average of one service area every 40km (25 miles).
It points out that there are no proper services on the M25 London ringway, on the AlM, the M11, M20, M23, M40 or for an 87km (54 mile) stretch of the M4.
"It is as stupid as buying a house without a bathroom," commented PTA planning director Richard Turner, who is lobbying planners and politicians to design new motorways with service areas from the start.
Current policy is to plan motorways and service areas separately. "It is really by good luck or coincidence that we get any services at all," commented Turner.
The FTA, which has been pressing for a better service area policy for the past 12 years, believes that the need for drivers to leave the motorway to use phones, toilets, eating and refuelling facilities is adding to operating costs, taking lorries on to roads where they create problems and is increasing traffic congestion in London.
Temporary toilet facilities at the Dartford Tunnel are the only form of services available on the M25, although the Department of Tranport is progressing slowly with plans for services on each of the motorway's four quadrants.
But ETA South-East controller John Guttridge points out that completion of the missing Hertfordshire link will by-pass a lay-by at the A405/M10 junction.
Plans are also being advanced by the DTp for a service area at Birchanger on the M11, on the M20 at Maidstone, on the M23 at Pease Pottage, and on the AlM near Stevenage.
An M4 service area opens at Newbury next week and land is being sought for another site near Reading.
The DTp is continuing its search for a suitable service area site near Reading, following the turning down of Warren Copse, a site near Shurlock Row beside the M4.
The ETA believes there is a need for an additional service area on the M25 between the AIM and the Dartford Tunnel (a busy section for Channel ports traffic), on the M40 and on the Kent motorways in time for the Channel Tunnel being completed in the Nineties.