31-647: Trowell services is a motorway service station off the M1 motorway in Trowell , Nottinghamshire , England, situated north of Junction 25. Opened in 1967 by Mecca Leisure, it is currently owned by Moto . The services are situated near Nottingham . The service area was going to be slightly further south, nearer to the A609 , with planning permission given in April 1962. It was built by John Laing . Laing also built Keele around
62-548: A Break and Esso, among others. Through acquisitions and mergers, there are now only three major operators. In an attempt to break this oligopoly, in 2001, the government proposed allowing "mobile fast food vans" to operate at the areas, though this idea never came to fruition. Originally, service areas were government-owned and leased to the operating companies. From 1992 onwards, new sites were planned and owned by private operators, and existing sites sold to them. In 2007, an AA survey concluded that service areas had improved in
93-520: A KFC & Pret added to the food offering. Sites upgraded included Ferrybridge, Reading, Tamworth, Stafford & Donington Park. Until 2007, Moto sites had an own-brand shop to sell products to travellers. After a trial of WHSmith at select sites was deemed successful, the brand was rolled out to most Moto sites, with some exceptions (Leeming Bar, Tiverton and Todhills). Also trialled were M&S Foodhalls , which were introduced in 2004 and now feature at most Moto locations. One site, Lymm, features
124-513: A Visual Reference and Reporting Point for general aviation traffic entering East Midlands Airport controlled airspace from the north. This article about a Nottinghamshire building or structure is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This United Kingdom road or road transport-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Motorway service station Motorway service areas ( MSA ) also known as services or service stations , are rest areas in
155-832: A barbershop. Previously, Toddington and Leigh Delamere sites also opened but have since closed. In 1995, Granada thought that betting arcades would be useful at motorway services: Most Moto locations have hotels: The petrol stations at Moto sites are variously Esso or BP . Selected Moto sites feature an indoor or outdoor play area within or near the main building. Outdoor play areas used to be more common but have been removed from sites for various reasons. Indoor play areas were first introduced to two service areas, Leigh Delamere Westbound and Donington, in 2016. Another indoor play area opened at Rugby in 2021. Moto operates various franchise outlets at some Extra MSA services. These include M&S Simply Food, Costa Coffee, West Cornwall Pasty Company, Krispy Kreme and Greggs. Moto won awards for
186-571: A league table. Reviews have taken place every year since. The latest UK motorway service area to open is Rugby services , operated by Moto Hospitality which opened on 30 April 2021. Ireland has six official motorway service areas, but 16 in total. The first service area, Lusk services, opened on the M1 on 8 September 2010. For many years, the National Roads Authority (NRA) opposed building services, preferring traffic to use existing businesses in bypassed towns, and that
217-450: A separate site for each direction of travel, but e.g. Cobham services has a single site, accessed directly from the clockwise carriageway and via a tunnel from the anticlockwise carriageway of the M25 . In some cases a pair of on-line sites for opposite directions may be connected via a pedestrian footbridge. In 1992, the system was changed so that the developer became responsible for choosing
248-457: A succession of Department for Transport Circulars, the current version being issued in December 2022. This sets out various facilities that must be provided in a new service station. Existing services that do not comply, because the requirements have changed, must achieve compliance as part of any significant refurbishment. These are enforced on operators either by the terms of their lease or by
279-494: A visit to Charnwood Forest and Melbourne Hall . Manageresses completed two-year catering and hotel management courses at Clarendon College of Further Education . It had 60 petrol pumps, a post office, a RAC station , a police station, with Robin Hood shields in the entrance. There was a business conference building for up to 250 people. The car parks were for 400 vehicles. It was managed from Trowell Hall. The services are also
310-408: Is the lesser. A previous minimum separation of 12 miles was removed in 2013. The current 28 miles is derived from 30 minutes driving time for an HGV limited to 56 mph (90 km/h) and replaced the previous 30 miles (48 km) in 2008. Initially service areas were located between junctions (on-line sites), having their own entry and exit slip roads. On-line sites usually have
341-511: The Sheriff of Nottingham , Elliot Durham, and Alan Fairley, joint chairman of Mecca Ltd . It had 24 acres, and employed 300, being opened seven months after the M1 motorway section; this section of motorway took two years to be built, and cost £4.75m; the motorway section was built from junction 25 to Stanton by Dale by George Wimpey , and the next part to junction 26 was built by Robert M Douglas;
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#1732786906324372-529: The Moto brand across Italy. In total, 31 Italian rest stops were rebranded Moto over a 3-year period. In 2007, Cremonini bought Compass' stake in the joint company, and rebranded the sites to their own brand, Chef Express. Briefly, in the early 2000s, there were also two French sites under the Moto banner. In 2006, Moto separated from Compass Group and SSP following successful acquisition by a consortium of investors. Macquarie Bank managed Moto until late 2015, when
403-668: The NRA due to the economic recession . The first of these private sites was Cashel services on the M8 , which was built by Topaz and opened on 9 June 2011. The NRA awarded the second batch of three services (Gorey, Athlone and Kilcullen) to Topaz in 2014. SuperStop objected to the decision - resulting in the construction and opening of the three services being delayed. All three sites would eventually be opened in 2019, despite Gorey being constructed as far back as 2015. The sites would also open under Circle K instead after Topaz had been rebranded under
434-527: The UK and Ireland where drivers can leave a motorway to refuel/recharge, rest, eat and drink, shop, use the toilet or stay in an on-site overnight hotel. They are also a safe refuge for drivers who break down alongside leaving at a motorway junction. The vast majority of motorway services in the UK are owned by one of three companies: Moto , Welcome Break and Roadchef . Smaller operators include Extra , Westmorland and EG Group . The first two service areas in
465-447: The UK, Watford Gap and Newport Pagnell , opened with temporary facilities when the M1 motorway was opened, on 2 November 1959. 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. However, it became apparent in
496-584: The banner in 2018. The newest motorway service area in Ireland is the Portlaoise Plaza, which opened on 31 July 2020. The third wave of services is currently under review by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (successor to the NRA). 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
527-521: The company was sold to USS . In 2008, Moto opened a new service station on the A1(M) at Kirk Deighton near Wetherby , Yorkshire. Also in the same year, they purchased Winchester Services from Roadchef, rebranding the sites under their own name. Moto's second new build services, at M6 junction 1 in Rugby, opened on 30 April 2021. The site introduced a new logo and corporate style - the first full update in
558-554: The company's history. Moto is currently in the development stage for its third new build service area at a site located near Sawtry , Peterborough , Cambridgeshire on the A1(M) . In 2021, Moto became a franchisee of Pret A Manger and started adding stores to its busier MSA locations. In 2022, Moto invested £13.5m in refurbishing 5 of its MSA sites to the new logo and branding, refurbishment of toilet & shower facilities, customer seating areas and food outlets. All these sites had
589-568: The first stamps for the Isle of Man , when it formed its own post office system on 5 July 1973. The Robin Hood Way currently follows half of the service road, to the east. There were 6 catering units; the site could cater for up to 750 in 1966 On Sunday 9 July 1967, Long Eaton took 27 visitors from its twin town of Romorantin-Lanthenay , in France, for lunch in the main restaurant, followed by
620-480: The late 1960s that such fancy amenities were unprofitable, so service areas began offering an increasingly basic service. High street brands were introduced to service areas in the 1990s, with most facilities eventually becoming franchises of well known brands. As more service stations opened, the number of operating companies increased, with sites run by the Rank Organisation , Granada , Pavilion, Take
651-663: The motorway network was not large enough to support them. However, in 2006 the Roads Act 2007 made provision for a Motorway Service Area Scheme to allow the construction of services. The NRA held a competition to determine an operator for the first three service areas to be opened. SuperStop, a consortium consisting of Petrogas (Applegreen) and Tedcastles Oil Products (TOP), won the contract. These first services were Lusk ( M1 ), Castlebellingham (M1) and Enfield ( M4 ) and were all opened in late 2010. Motorway services began to be developed privately from 2011, following delays from
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#1732786906324682-606: 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. The requirements include 24-hour, 365-day provision of: A picnic area with a minimum of ten tables each seating six people was required up to 2013, and is still required in order for a picnic area to be advertised on signage. The following restrictions also apply: Lodges for accommodation are permitted. Conference facilities or business centres and retail space are permitted;
713-779: The previous three years, but cleanliness and pricing were still major issues. Opposition towards service areas has grown, with some planning applications being refused: some notable examples are Catherine-de-Barnes on the M42 , and Kirby Hill on the A1(M) , both of which have had applications contested. Despite concerns of local residents, Beaconsfield on the M40 opened on 17 March 2009, and Cobham services opened in September 2012. Kirby Hill would eventually get approved for construction in April 2021. In 2017, Transport Focus began an annual review of service areas, with each site ranked on
744-561: The quality of their internal training programme "Achieve In Moto" (AIM) at the Training Journal Awards in 2017. Moto won Gold in the category "Best Private/Commercial Programme" and also two Silver awards in the categories "Best Talent Development Programme" and "Best Operational Programme". Moto have won awards for the standards of cleanliness in their public toilets, winning the ' Loo of the Year Award ' in 2006 (for
775-606: The requirements for service areas. There is a further category of Truck Stop , serving HGVs only. Moto Hospitality Moto Hospitality Limited , trading as Moto , is a British service station operator which operates 59 motorway service stations across the United Kingdom . It is currently the UK's largest service area operator. Granada , who owned the chain of Granada motorway service stations, merged with Compass in July 2000 to form Granada Compass plc. The plan
806-655: The same time; Laing had also built five teaching blocks and eight halls of residence at the University of Nottingham . It was known as the Mecca Village. The site was planned to open in summer 1966, with the contract given on Monday 20 January 1964, and construction was to start in 1965. It opened on Thursday 23 March 1967, with a special area for dogs, developed with the RSPCA . At the opening were around 300 people, with many chairmen of local rural district councils, and
837-518: The section was opened on Thursday 25 August 1966. The motorway section was meant to open in January 1966, part of the Lockington - Nuthall section. George Dereford , a Hungarian artist from Marlow, Buckinghamshire , made two three-dimensional mosaic murals about Robin Hood , in an Aztec style, near the entrances, being seven foot high called The Fighting Horsemen and The Archer . He designed
868-943: The site of a motorway service area, and consequently junction sites became the preferred option as they are cheaper to construct, as well as being accessible to traffic travelling in several directions. Following a public consultation in 2007/8, the Department for Transport/Highways Agency announced that new services should be located at on-line sites, unless a junction site is the only possibility. Two recent openings, Wetherby (2008) and Beaconsfield (2009), are examples of junction sites: they are located at A1(M) junction 46, and M40 junction 2 respectively. However, more recently still, Cobham (2012) and Gloucester (2014) are on-line. The siting of motorway service areas can be contentious, leading to protracted public inquiries, and often vociferous local campaigns against proposed schemes. Government policy for motorway services has been set out in
899-661: The size of each of these was limited, basically to 200 and 500 m (2,200 and 5,400 sq ft) respectively, until 2013, but are now left to the planning system. Originally, service areas were allowed to sell alcohol with food. Sale of alcohol was outlawed on service areas on government-owned land from 1961, permitted from 1998, banned for new sites from 2008, and permitted again from 2013. The government policy distinguishes "service areas" and "rest areas". There are three rest areas ( Todhills , Leeming Bar , and Scotch Corner ). All were existing facilities on trunk roads that were upgraded to motorways, and now, in fact, meet
930-495: Was retained by Compass, which became part of its Select Service Partner (SSP) UK division, but ownership of the Granada brand and trademark passed to the new media company. The Granada name was retained on the service stations until 23 May 2001, when the 47 sites were rebranded as Moto. Upon rebrand, Compass originally intended to use the Moto brand across Europe. In 2003, they created a joint venture with Cremonini to introduce
961-413: Was to combine the hospitality interests of the two businesses and hive off the media division, which was done by demerging the new group into Compass plc and Granada Media in 2001. Previously, Granada had acquired Forte plc in a £3.3bn hostile takeover on 24 January 1996. It sold its French Cote France service stations to Italy's Autogrill in December 1997. The food and hospitality division of Granada