Motorway service area

Initially, most service areas were designed to be bold and attractive, with many opening viewing platforms and featuring fancy restaurants.

A famous example of a service area from this era is Lancaster, which features a 65ft tower which previously contained the main restaurant.

[1] As more service stations opened, the number of operating companies increased, with sites run by the Rank Organisation, Granada, Pavilion, Take a Break and Esso, among others.

In an attempt to break this oligopoly, in 2001, the government proposed allowing "mobile fast food vans" to operate at the areas,[2] though this idea never came to fruition.

[1] In 2007, an AA survey concluded that service areas had improved in the previous three years, but cleanliness and pricing were still major issues.

For many years, the National Roads Authority (NRA) opposed building services, preferring traffic to use existing businesses in bypassed towns, and that the motorway network was not large enough to support them.

Current government policy is that the interval between core motorway service areas should be no more than 28 miles (45 km) or 30 minutes travelling time, whichever is the lesser.

[19] Initially service areas were located between junctions (on-line sites), having their own entry and exit slip roads.

The siting of motorway service areas can be contentious, leading to protracted public inquiries, and often vociferous local campaigns against proposed schemes.

[20] Government policy for motorway services has been set out in a succession of Department for Transport Circulars, the current version being issued in December 2022.

These are enforced on operators either by the terms of their lease or by the need for the Highways Agency to agree to provide access to the motorway, and planning permission should be granted only for facilities that comply.

Conference facilities or business centres and retail space are permitted; the size of each of these was limited, basically to 200 and 500 m2 (2,200 and 5,400 sq ft) respectively, until 2013, but are now left to the planning system.