Had the misfortune to visit the Bridgwater services on the M5 yesterday. Sweet Jesus what miserable experience.

Any others that are as bad as this hell hole.

Michael Wood Services, on the M5.

Also, the only one that used to be on the M61 up until about 4 years ago – my goodness.

Washington a1m is fairly bad…

All of them are terrible in my experience

There’s still a god awful one on the M61. It’s like stepping back in time to the ’80s. Hateful place!

I remember going into that one on the M61 and finding a guy charging his phone in the toilet using an adapted shaver plug, I’m sure he was sleeping in the cubicle 😯

It’s really nice now that Euro have taken over and spent millions on it.

Think it was Burton in Kendal I went to a while back that was just in dire need of a refit in the loos.

Best is Tebay

Michael Wood has been tidied up a little!

Worst was the one on the A48 into Newport but that’s just closed.

Westmorland/Tebay are opening their second services on the M5 – excellent choice for their first expansion as all the services along the M5 suck.

Happendon on the M74 is pretty dreadful. Its only saving grace is hardly anyone stops there. They can’t even be bothered to turn the lights on, so you sit there on your lonesome, in the gloom.

Pretty much all UK ones are miserable. Much prefer the French ones; it’s entirely possible there to have a good meal for a reasonable price unlike 8 quid for beans on toast in one British one.

the one on the M4 just inside the M25. what a hole.

think my favourite is on the M3

I love French services, they are buzzing!

Michael Wood is fine – all new and stuff. That one up North where Peter Kay did a spoof. Think that may have been M61. Truly horrible. Oh and anything up the M6 past Preston

I avoid them altogether. Instead, I make notes on where the petrol stations are at junctions.

E.g M6/ A580 has a Shell right on the roundabout 10p a litre cheaper than SS.

bolton. No contest.

Instead, I make notes on where the petrol stations are at junctions.

Wow, your life sounds interesting! 😉

Pook – that’s the one!

Not all French services are any good. And the French side of the tunnel is much worse than the UK side IMO.

However, the Bresse services on the A40 is magnificent. (That’s the A40 to Chamonix, not Oxford, BTW)

Tebay – that’s the nice touristy Lakes decor one, isn’t it?

Gordano M5

Bolton services is now Rivington

http://www.eurogarages.com/rivington-services/

Stop there regular, especially when coming back from Rivi on the bike as there’s a route through the services.

Rivington isn’t that bad – well the south bound bit anyway. Bright, open space, clean and tidy. A lot better than some.

Tebay is OK, but not as good as all the reviews would have you believe. The couple of times we’ve eaten there, the restaurant area has been a bomb site – food on the floor, ground into the carpets.
The deli and coffee cabins are nice touches though.

Another vote for Happendon on the M74; its ideal as its about right for a stop en route from the highlands and is so shockingly dire you’re generally back on the road within 5 mins. Reminds me of the road-block from 28 days later 🙂

Can’t say I have ever been to a good one 🙁

The Burton in Kendal one again on the m6 is an absolute dump.. Rank toilets, poorly surfaced car park and a ripoff.

Leeming Bar Services.

End of thread.

Washington a1m is fairly bad…

+1

Stracathro truck stop.

Tebay is really expensive too.

I’ve been to some French ones that were astounding and some that you wouldn’t take a dead cat to.

But they’re all pretty much awful at the end of the day.

Tebay is really expensive too.

Its expensive compared to going to a pub lunch but it doesn’t compare badly to other motorway service stations on price. What makes it pricy is theres actually food you want to buy, its easy not to spend money in a services that doesn’t sell anything you want to eat 🙂

Tebay is suffering from being over-rated though, partly in terms of just getting too busy, and partly in terms of being disappointed that its not the nirvana that everyone says it is.

Its only a good service station. If you think how bad services stations are – its only better than that

Astonishment that effort is being made to make a service station good (rather than only as rubbish as they can get away with) quickly turns into hyperbole.

Watford Gap – I never stop there any more for several reasons:
– I’ve broken down there twice
– I was involved in a crash near there on the M1
– I once got stuck there for an hour because of standstill traffic on the M1
– the car parking confuses me

Keele.

Partly because it’s a dump, and partly because my overriding memory of it is going somewhere, stopping at Keele to be violently ill, turning round at the next junction to come home, and being violently ill again at the same services on the other side of the motorway. I still wince every time I drive past it.

Don’t get to those north of the M62 that often but all those I frequent are pretty rubbish. Everything is a rip off and I do try not to have to refuel at them. Usually just drop in and grab a coffee to keep me awake but even thats more expensive than anywhere else.

My last visit to Westmorland s/bound was a good one, I was rattling with hunger, the hotpot was fantastic, however the farmshop is a monument to British Middle class gullibility and brazen-necked Cumbrians.

What’s needed is the Paul bakery franchise to be allowed in.

Hapsford, on the m56, next to stanlow, one of the biggest oil refinerys in the uk, always fuel a lot more expensive, they could run a hosepipe to the refinery to save costs on delivery.

Then the main shop cafe,has a glass wall built accross the entrance that you have to go round, so funny watching people walk into it as they head to to the toilets with loads of signs saying police and staff patrol them, just perhaps patrol the car park outside or the motorway ,and lets not forget their sky high prices for anything and everything,if you want cheap uel and food cheshire oaks is just up the road.

Birch services now has a Greggs, typical North Manchester class that!

British motorway services need to take a lesson from the French ones.

Pease Pottage on the M23.

Pretty small but they still don’t seem to have mastered how to keep their tiny toilets in good nick. Often a queue as half are out of order, stinks, never hot water and often so little water pressure that the cold taps hardly work. And one of the two hand dryers is normally broken as well.

Leeming Bar Services.

last time I was there it was basically just a mcdonalds & a petrol station. has it got even worse than that? or did it get flattened when they built the new 3 lane section?

Oh I’ve just remembered Blackburn services on the M65.

Not totally bad, but you kind of have to go through an Industrial Estate to get to it and there’s a Driving Test centre on the same estate so you get stuck behind learners trying to emerge onto what is basically a motorway roundabout.

Think they have a Mcds and a newsagent and a petrol station.