It’s been widely reported in the media today that the proposed Gloucester Gateway MSA has been given planning permission. See, for example, this report in The Guardian, in which motorwayservices.info gets a brief mention,

Normally, a new MSA wouldn’t warrant much in the way of comment, but this one seems to be different. For a start, it’s been very controversial locally - there’s been a strong campaign against its construction from local residents who fear that it will be a blot on the landscape (although, to be fair, there’s been an equally strong local campaign in its favour, on the grounds that it will be a much-needed economic bost to the area).

What’s more interesting, from the point of view of the travelling public, though, are the organisations behind the proposal. Gloucester Gateway Services (to give it its working title, the official name hasn’t yet been decided) won’t be run by one of the “big three” operators, or even by the up-and-coming Extra MSA group. Instead, it’s a joint venture between a local organisation, the Gloucester Gateway Trust, and Westmorland, operators of the Tebay services. Like Tebay, the new site won’t be reliant on national franchise burger and coffee bars, instead, it will operate the restaurant and shop entirely under its own brand name (whether that’s Westmorland or a new brand is, again, yet to be decided) and obtain as much food as possible from local sources.

Independently-run MSA aren’t entirely novel - apart from Tebay itself, the new Stop24 services at Folkestone aren’t operated by one of the major chains, and Cairn Lodge operates Happenden on the M74 in Scotland. But the link beteen a local organisation and Westmoreland is unusual, and it’s also notable for being Westmorland’s first venture outside their home territory.

The Tebay services have, ever since their construction, won praise from the media and regular travellers for their ambience and quality. But I suspect that comes, to a large extent, from the MSA cognoscenti who value Tebay primarily because it is different. But the major operators aren’t stupid, the reason they have national franchises on board is because their market research tells them that that’s what their customers want. The risk for Gloucester Gateway’s operators is that Mr and Mrs Average and the kids on the way home from holiday, or Mr Mondeo Man on his way to the next appointment, will skip Gloucester Gateway and continue to Strensham because what they really want is a burger or a coffeee, and Strensham will offer them that from a recognisable brand name while Gloucester Gateway will be an unknown quantity.

The same applies to Tebay, of course, but when you’re regularly winning awards for being the best MSA on the network then you can afford the downside of not having well-known brands. But only one area can be the winner, and if that continues to be Tebay then Gloucester Gateway will merely be another MSA with nothing special to set it apart - other than the fact that it doesn’t have national brands.

On the other hand, if Gloucester Gateway is a success, then it may well spawn many more that are similar. While the branded franchises of the major operators may suit a large proportion of the travelling public, they clearly don’t appeal everyone - just look at the comments on motorwayservices.info, for example - and there probably is a market for MSAs which deliberately set out to offer something different. The key question, therefore, is whether or not that market is big enough. Gloucester Gateway may well go some way towards answering that.

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There’s a good article in today’s Observer magazine in which comedian Alex Horne talks about his “secret love affair” with motorway services. Motorwayservices.info gets a mention, as do some of our contributors.

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A motorway service station may not sound like a key election battleground, but according to psephologists, service stations - or rather, the people who regularly use them and live near them - hold the power to swing the outcome on 6 May.

At least, that’s the claim made by the BBC’s Newsnight programme, in an edition broadcast on 7th April. The reason, according to Experian’s Bruno Rost, is that

They tend to live in new housing, on the periphery of small provincial towns and cities, within easy access of the motorway networks.

They’ll have new cars, houses full of all the new gadgetry like Blu-ray and HD. They’re also driven by personality politics and the next new thing. They voted for Blair in 1997. In 2010 they’re inclined towards the new man on the block.

Apparently, these voters represent 15% of the vote in key marginals, which means they can easily swing the election.

So, what do you think? I’ve created a new poll on the main site asking which party you think will do a better job for MSA users. Please take a moment to vote, and add your comments to the debate!

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The Highways Agency has just published a report into the provision of motorway service facilities in the UK, and it’s worth reading if you’ve got a bit of time to spare. I was, however, much amused by these paragraphs in the National Report PDF:

There is no official database of MSAs available therefore it was necessary to perform a desktop study in order to identify the locations of such sites on the Motorway Network.

The desktop study used online aerial mapping sources to identify the locations of service areas on the Motorway Network. The information was then cross-referenced with conventional mapping to establish the names of the MSAs. Thus a comprehensive list of MSAs in England has been produced. As an additional check, information was cross-referenced with unofficial internet based guides to MSAs – motorwayservices.info and motorwayservicesonline.co.uk.

It’s nice to know that we’re providing a useful service to the Highways Agency!

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This was one of the comments waiting to be checked this morning:

Why don’t you put  a note on your site referring drivers who are being ripped off by Private Parking Companies that they may wish to visit moneysavingexpert.com or pepipoo.com for advice before making their payments. Or are you, as I suspect, less ‘independent’ and less driver/customer orientated than you let on.

Apart from the unjustified paranoia (the fact that we don’t link to your favourite websites doesn’t mean that this site is any less independent), there’s a fair point there. The penalty charges incurred for overstaying your welcome at MSAs are, in many cases, probably unenforceable. So, for those who wojuld like to read more on the subject, then I would recommend this page:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets

What I wouldn’t recommend, though, is taking advice from unqualified conributors to various website forums. In particular, the other website mentioned above - pepipoo.com - is one that I’d avise you to steer well clear of.  Although it does contain a lot of good, accurate advice, there’s also a vast amount of dross posted in the forums by well-meaning but ignorant bar-room lawyers. Unless you’re capable of telling the difference between the good advice and the rubbish, then don’t go there - and if you can tell the difference, then you probably don’t need to!

If you’re looking a for a forum in whch to discus legal matters (including parking, clamping, etc), then my suggestion would be to forget the web and go to Usenet instead. The uk.legal.moderated newsgroup has a high proportion of intelligent, informed contributors and you’re far more ikely to get good advice there than on any web-based forum.

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I’ve taken advantage of some spare time over the holiday period to add the ability to view larger versions of the photos on the site. This only works for ones submitted in the last year or so, as before that I didn’t keep a copy of the original photo submission due to space constraints. But, for those where I do have a copy of the full-size original, it’s now linked from the standard images under the “Photos” tab - if the icon changes to the “link finger” when you mouse over an image on the Photos tab, then it’s clickable and the link will show the large image.

For an example, go to the Photos tab for Beaconsfield services and you’ll see that all the images are clickable and lead to the larger version.

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As mentioned in the previous blog post, Watford Gap services is 50 years old today. Opened on the same day as the M1 itself, it’s the first and oldest MSA in the UK. Read the rest of this entry »

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For those who may not be aware of the fact, the M1 opened exactly 50 years ago today. And, with it, the first motorway service area, Watford Gap.

There are celebrations taking place today at Watford Gap to mark the occasion, so if you’re passing by then make sure you drop in. A full report will be posted here later today.

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Yes, that’s right, you can now follow MotorwayServices.info on Twitter. Whenever someone posts a new comment here on the site we’ll tweet about it, so you can easily keep up to date with what people are saying.

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Some of the most common criticisms I’ve received about MotorwayServices.info have been about the hotel links and information. Specifically, there were two main points that have been made the most often:

1. Although each area page lists the on-site hotel where there is one (and we know about it), there’s no clickable link directly to it. Instead, users have to follow the general “hotels” link and then try to find the one that’s located at the MSA. And, often, it’s not listed on that page at all.
2. Many of the prices shown in the hotels list turned out to be unavailable when actually trying to book a room.

The main reason for both of these problems was essentially the same. Firstly, the data feed on which the hotel lists are based didn’t include Travelodge, which is the most common operator of hotels at MSAs. And, secondly, the data feed wasn’t being updated often enough, meaning that prices were often several months out of date.

The solution to that is twofold. Firstly, and fairly obviously, I’ve now set up an automated system to update the primary data feed on a weekly basis, meaning that prices displayed here will never be more than a few days out of date. I should really have done that a long time ago; it was just a lack of round tuits that stopped it.

Secondly, I’ve now managed to get a data feed for Travelodge, something which had previously evaded me! That, in turn, has made it practical to include direct links from each area page to the appropriate hotel where the data is available. That covers the majority of sites where the hotel operator is either Travelodge or Days Inn, and some of the sites where the operator is Premier Inn. I don’t have a full feed yet for Premier Inn, but that’s something I’m hoping to add in the near future if at all possible. However, it’s less essential as they’re only the third most common hotel operator at MSAs.

The separate hotels list still exists, as I know many people prefer to use other hotels near to MSAs rather than the on-site hotel, so the list and the advanced search facility makes that possible. But I hope the changes will help those of you who simply want an overnight stop at the most convenient location and also want the most convenient way of booking it.

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