Have your say on Motorway Service Areas

As posted many times it seems by those who tend to travel "over there" normally it seems out of the main tourist seasons, how great it is with space every where and "empty roads" even in this very crowded island it can at times  be almost the same out of the main holiday periods

+1👍🏻. East coast route thru Yorkshire(North) Summer-gridlocked at times but always a moving queue. Late Autumn/Winter-hardly a vehicle, even then delivery trucks mainly(until weekends) 

Whilst the UK doesn't have an Aires system, it would be pretty straight forward for every council to mark off a few MH (and even caravan) spaces at the rear of a large car park and charge a suitable rate.

this would enable anyone touring to pull off away from the major highway and, for a small fee, take a break without being forced into a crowded under provided service station, or worse, pushing on when tired.

im not advocating water and waste facilities, merely a small area for vans to rest up during a journey.

If every town had just 4/5 spaces, the load would be spread pretty thinly, which is what happens abroad, many small stopping places....rather than far less large, crowded, awful (expensive) ones....perhaps that's the idea?

i visit Dorchester a bit these days (relative) and the top o town car park has a large vehicle area (10 or so places) where MH (poss Caravans?) can park for £1 an hour...

simple and effective.

Ok so it's been 4 years since this post, so may I ask what has happend since that time and how have things improved on Motorway Service Areas ? What were the results of the survey ?

I don't know the answer regarding the survey but I am pleased to report that when we stopped at Leicester Forest East, northbound about a week ago the whole lorry area, where caravans and motorhomes can park, has been resurfaced and reconfigured to provide more parking places. It looks as if the car parking area has also had a makeover and enlarged.

David

Never managed to find an empty ‘caravan parking’ spot. Always full of cars - usually end up in the squalid HGV area, 

I try where humanly possible to avoid MSAs 

Do you mean universally or were you referring to LFE services only, following DK's post?

I am the first to moan about difficulties surrounding caravan parking at motorway services, but I must say the notion that (a) you've never found an empty space and (b) that they are always full of cars, seems odd to my mind. Perhaps your sample size is small and mostly the same services; if not then, frankly, your claim is hard to warrant. 

I prefer motorway services; expensive yes, but you know what you're going to get and can generally rely on them. I look mostly for ones with a Costa, so rarely go to Welcome Break! 

In my experience, it is far more usually lorries that occupy caravan spaces. The occasional car, it is true, especially where cars and caravans park in adjacent areas, and far away from the HGV area, such as Cobham (M25), Hopwood Park (M42) and (I think - long time since I've been) Gloucester (M5), as examples; for me it is lorries that tend to be the bigger issue. Cars usually find their way easily to the legitimate car parking areas and for those areas to be full is exceptionally rare. Signage for caravans, however, is often extremely poor or non-existent. A common problem is that there is an initial sign but then no follow up. Many times I have ended up parking in the HGV spaces simply because I could not find the caravan area. I find it is very rare not to be able to park at all, although it has happened - I remember one instance at Corley (M6) for example. 

Wetherby services is one of my favourites and it has good caravan parking, sometimes marshalled, but on my last two visits - at very quiet times - there were mostly lorries in the caravan area. I often visit Donington when I take my motorhome out for a run between trips. This used to have very good caravan parking, but, in the last year or so, the caravan area has become almost filled with lorries, as the picture shows on a recent Sunday morning visit. The spaces at the front are supposed to be for coaches, but I will use those if lorries occupy the caravan spaces.  A lot of these are tractor units only and I have now seen this often suggesting possibly some kind of agreement with the services. There is always space in the HGV section but it is a long walk to the facilities.

Strensham is one of my favourites for excellent signage and good provision not, in my experience, abused.

As I live in sight of LFE, literally, I have not experienced parking at those services so I cannot add to DK's post.

I've been asking the same thing myself.  Apparently, the working group (The National Towing Working Group - part of Highways England) didn't meet at all 'during Covid' - this is the response the Club got when I asked if they could follow this up.  Now that things are a bit easier, I'll ask the question again..... When I asked the original question, which help to encourage the Working Group to send out the survey, I'd no idea we would have to wait for so long for the result.

David

Hi everyone.  I have followed the question of the Motorway Service Stations Servey up again.  The Club have tried to get a response from Highways England, but have not been able to get very much out of them...  This is the response ....

"The survey that was posted on the Club Together forum was carried out by Highways England (now National Highways) between March and June 2018. The Club has repeatedly asked for feedback from this survey but has consistently been stalled with different responses, the last one being that senior staff were reviewing it prior to release. The group that coordinated this survey has not met since September 2019 and the confidence in the results, four years on, being relevant remains to be seen and is not likely to be credible. We also feel now that the issue is not just about parking at service stations for caravans but should extend to how one can charge an electric vehicle whilst towing a caravan."

Not the response we really wanted.....

David

You tried, David 👍🏻