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 the place was almost empty on Tuesday lunchtime (northern motorway connoisseurs would always stay on until Skelton Lake services near Leeds, which has its own nature reserve, a Pret a Manger and a Pizza Express).
An ATM that takes a £1.99 cut from every withdrawal completes the picture, alongside a branch of WH Smith with a curiously large display of beach balls, considering its distance from the ocean. But for those wanting to spend a penny and no more, the toilets are clean, if painted a gruesome lime green, and the locks work.
If you’ve brought your own picnic, there are tables outside. There’s a working postbox and two electric car charging points, plus at least five others for Teslas, and a second branch of Starbucks. For those who do not agree with Transport Focus’s findings and want to linger for longer than the two hours of free parking, rooms at the adjacent Days Inn motel start at just £39.95.
Visiting on their way home to Bridlington in East Yorkshire, Sam and Hollie Hanson declared Hartshead Moor “all right”. Daisy, their Patterdale terrier, was happy and catered for with a bowl of water, and although Sam had crossed the bridge for a KFC, he had no complaints. “It’s definitely not the worst,” he said. But nor is it the best. His favourite? “The one on the way to Cornwall with grass on the roof.”
Ah, Gloucester services, sister of the mighty Tebay in Cumbria – “the service station from heaven”, and the only MSA beloved enough to star in its own Channel 4 series, A Lake District Farm Shop. Both are run by Westmorland, which “chose not to take part” in the survey, according to Transport Focus. That may or may not be why the independent transport watchdog’s winner was Rugby services on the M6, which was opened last April by Moto, and was the only site to receive a 100% satisfaction rating.
A spokesperson for Welcome Break said the company was “very disappointed” with Hartshead Moor’s poor score. “We have received the detailed comments from Transport Focus and we will be working closely with our teams to address the feedback from the report as well as prioritising the site for future investment,” she said.
