Motorway Services parking

Much depends on time of day, day of the week and season of the year. Sometimes service stations are busy ,sometimes not so bad. 

Even Exeter services, which regularly get bad reports on here, often has space towards the bottom of the site. I think it’s the tortuous access for southbound traffic via roundabout with multiple traffic lights and repeated change of lanes which deters people from trying their luck there. But Taunton Deane southbound on M5 is better.

It's always a bit of Russian Roulette pulling into the service stations I feel. Very rarely do we get into the spots for caravans. More often than not we are in with the lorries, which we're ok with. But on the odd occasion have had to drive straight back out again and on to next one as there were no spaces long enough to stop in. I always expect the worst now and am happily surprised if we get a parking spot easily.

I think the problem with service areas are that many of them are not even user friendly for motorhomes other than perhaps the smaller PVC's. It's not so bad if the have drive through parking but many of them don't, so anything over six metres long would stick out too far. In those circumstances we really have no option but to use the longer bays provided for caravans. It's probably the same reason you find commercial vans in the parking. I am perfectly happy to go in with the trucks but that is not always allowed. As the Government are discovering to their cost when trying to persuade more people to become HGV drivers one of the main reasons why people don't want to is the terrible roadside/motorway facilities. For the volume of vehicles using our motorways there is just insufficient parking.

David

I have never used a drive through parking when caravanning also never parked in a motorway services for the last 15 years

I suppose a roadside laybye could be considered drive through, as you don’t generally reverse out of them.😉

Sensibly the parking supervisor at Wetherby services puts two MH’s in the drive through bays. If your at the back you may of course have to reverse out, which isn’t really an issue.

Rarely use those either Steve unless running too early for arrival time. Also I prefer these days to keep below a 2 hour drive as much as possible.

Never heard of a services parking supervisor Steve

There are no standards regarding this subject, some places offer good parking others not. It's always bad during school holidays, there's just not enough capacity at peak times. Although it would be OK for some motorhomes to use normal parking areas it can mean we get stuck in tight areas so it's not always easy for us.

Probably the best run services around! But I think Gloucester services, because they are relatively new are also very good.