A New Style of Motorway Service Station?

AS OWNER/FOUNDER OF Creative Download, I travel extensively with my team, visiting clients across the U.K.

It is always a pleasure to stop and grab a bite to eat at Gloucester Services, which is located on the M5 highway. This seems to the new breed of motorway service stations.

The thought of a motorway service station conjures up images of dirty toilets, overpriced burgers and chip bars – somewhere you only stop if you must.

Gloucester Services, on the other hand, has a calming feel and takes the experience of a motorway stop to a whole new level. The service station boasts its own nature reserve with a waterfall, clear water pond, trees and rolling hillside. Most of the food on sale in its shops and restaurants is sourced from more than 130 suppliers within a 30-mile radius.

From a visual merchandising point of view, the retailer certainly takes pride in the presentation of its store with great merchandise to browse. Anything from necessities for the rest of your journey to an ample selection of clothes, gifts, toiletries and even furniture are on hand for customers to browse.

Gloucester Services, owned and operated by the Westmorland Family, is a family business that began life in the Cumbrian uplands. It grew out of Tebay Services, the U.K.’s first family-owned motorway services area, which opened in 1972 after the M6 motorway was built across John and Barbara Dunning’s farm. The pair opened a small 30-seat café serving home-cooked, locally sourced food.

Gloucester Services is also the first bee-friendly motorway services in the U.K.: The services roof is seeded with a wildflower and grass seed mix, creating the perfect habitat for the bee population that lives in the on-site hive. There is free tap water available, reducing the need for customers to buy plastic bottles. Leftover cooking oil is recycled as biodiesel to be used in diesel engines. Look out for unusual birds with a wildlife spotter sheet created with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to help identify species around the services.

As if it couldn’t get any more customer-friendly, even Fido is not forgotten. There’s a well sign-posted dog walk and free water bowls available at the front entrances.