Could do better: a typical meal at a service station off the A1. Photograph: Don McPhee/Guardian
Ever wondered if a spell at a motorway service station could actually be a pleasant experience? A new survey by Holiday Which? can't promise you a perfect pit stop, but the magazine's new guide to the UK's best and worst motorway service stations should at least warn you of the very worst spots to get caught short.
According to their survey of 57 of the UK's 83 motorway services, the worst facilities were at Cullompton on the M5 near Bristol, described as "little more than a McDonald's next to a petrol station". Toilets there were, shockingly, found unflushed with missing seats and broken locks.
By law, motorway service stations must provide parking, 24-hour petrol and toilets - though they must not become attractive destinations in their own right to avoid creating extra traffic. Holiday Which? admits that these restrictions mean "you're never going to find a three-star Michelin restaurant right on the M6", but it wonders why more stations don't make more of the local landscape, offer healthier meals, better children's and disabled loos and provide relevant local information.
Top of the league was the independently run service station at Tebay on the M6 in Cumbria: "An attractive wooden building with terrific far-reaching Cumbrian views and a duck pond make a great first impact ... With stuffed pheasant, a deli counter and a selection of chutneys and jams, this is the closest the motorway network comes to Harrods' Food Hall," they rave.
You can excuse the effusive praise when you read that the team of three researchers diligently ate the cheese sandwiches and checked the toilet facilities of more than 50 mainly "dingy and unattractive" roadside establishments the length and breadth of the country.
