Beach balls and lime green loos: a brief stop at Britain’s worst services

theguardian.com:

There are various points of interest on the M62 between Manchester and Leeds. The farmhouse sandwiched between the fast lanes near Huddersfield; the sign marking the highest point of England’s motorway network; the moors where Ian Brady and Myra Hindley buried their victims.

To this list we may now add: Britain’s worst service station.

According to a survey of more than 31,000 visitors to 119 service stations around England, Scotland and Wales, Welcome Break’s eastbound Hartshead Moor services near Bradford are the least satisfactory of the lot.

We all have our own subjective metrics for choosing where to stop on the motorway. Some will risk running out of petrol in order to drive to the next McDonald’s. Others prize a sparkling set of toilets or a smorgasbord of electric car charging points above all else.

For some people – a district reporter filing copy on the go, say – it is all about the number of plug sockets and how long you can stay in the car park without being walloped with a fine.

In order to produce its league table of motorway service areas (MSAs), the Transport Focus survey asked visitors about the “layout and quality of the approach”, the food and drink offering, the toilets, sustainability, and how well the service station catered for disabled travellers and HGV drivers.

Hartshead Moor East came bottom, with only 80% of visitors saying they were satisfied. But is it really so bad?

Approaching this low point in British hospitality from the Manchester direction, a sign warns the hungry driver to set their culinary expectations low. Unless they can be bothered to go over the bridge to the western side, they face a triumvirate of eating options: Burger King, Subway and Starbucks.

The limited choice may explain why