My nomination for this special award goes to.......(drum roll...)
Newport Pagnell Services. Tah-Daaaah
On Saturday it was a dump. The whole place was filthy, the tiles in the toilets were cracked & filthy, as were the toilets, the fast food outlets were poorly staffed, there was no other option than fast food, the shops had big boxes of stock cluttering up their tiny aisles,(glad I'm not in a wheelchair any more), the eating area was like something from a 1970's Soviet state canteen.
Awful.
Newport Pagnell, my nomination goes to you.
Tbf(or not), it's one of the oldest services in the country so it's been like a 1970s canteen since the 1960s. Short of bulldozing the whole site & building a new one, I can't see things improving much.
Why is it that the French can get it so right with autoroute services, all the ones I have used have been clean and welcoming, even the espresso coffee vending machines (Bean to Cup of course), deliver a far better coffee for 1€, than you can get from our motorway services coffee shops.
And as for Aire's we don't even have them on our UK motorway network, what's that all about?
French services get it wrong with the toilets though, not enough & half are usually out of action. Massive queue for ladies & gents bog full of ladies who can't wait. Easiest place for blokes to have a p**s is in the bushes & most do...
Perhaps Billy uses different services to us, I have never been on a bad one yet. But then again I have only been coming to. France for 15 years so I am only a newbie compared to some.
Les
------------- The worst day fishing is better than the best day working
Haven't been to Newport Pagnell services for many years but I bet it hasn't improved! Also used to hate Leicester Forest East, also looks like something from a communist state.
We recently stopped at the brand new services at Gloucester M5. The southbound side is just finished. See here. It's like Waitrose on the side of the road! Food is not cheap, but most services are the same. No fast food outlets. They have outside picnic areas much like the French aires.
The Gloucester services are the same people as Westmorland.
We always make a point of stopping there on a trip north, for the farm shop.
However we can nominate another service area for the 'bad' award, Durham services, on the A1. An off road area accessed from a number of routes with a tricky roundabout. The access road for cars is badly signed so we missed it, and had to go round and back in again. The exit to the A1 includes a right turn onto a busy main road, traffic queues to exit, and the markings on the road don't match the signs, so you end up in the wrong lane and have to push back in.
Interior is ok I suppose.
Last year we vowed not to call again, but OH forgot this year and insisted we call in. Never again.