Motorway service stations charge up to 37p a litre more than stations less than 3 miles away

How can the costs be higher when they have access through the back of the services often only a couple of miles from other forecourts they deliver to?

Chris Grayling shows the government ethos that the only people who should be fleecing people are the government.

I suggest people should have a look at corporate finances of corporations such as Welcome Break, Roadchef, Moto and Compass. The board and directors remuneration packages and large acquisitions keep the operating profits down to figures like 7%.

This is part of the widespread ethos that leading people should make obscene amounts of money from people who appear willing to fund such enterprises. A look at the finances of virtually any business park or industrial estate shows that charging people what they can get away with is par for the course and that the old idea of only charging people what is ethical is now the preserve of the minority which is a consequence of the 1980s yuppie ideology.

Wow ground breaking reporting there hey, tell us something we don’t already know!!!

What about that major government ripoff agency the DVLA, that fleeces every car owner on the sale and purchase of cars when you back date the road tax to the end of the previous month, there’s no excuse now its all computerised, you should be charged from the date you put the car on the road and also be refunded from the date of sale and not just whole months left as is done now!!!

I discovered this many years ago. I even found several years ago on my way from Birmingham to Minehead, that Morrison’s at Rubery (near J4 M5) had added 5p per litre over the usual price. Already aware that Lydiate Ash Services were more expensive. I had decided to fill up at Morrisons for the journey. I drove past immediately and went to Sainsburys at Northfield 2 miles further away, I would never do this for normal pottering around, but for a long journey 5 extra miles is no problem.

Living in a rural area, prices are a bit higher, but I get the best price I can, but if I have occasion to go to or through Taunton, or Bridgwater, I fill up cheaply there, and if I find I am running low, I will put £10 worth in my tank to carry me over the miles before I can fill up, but I usually get to a cheap station with 1/4 tank full. I plan my fuelling with that in mind.

I don’t think it is cheap anywhere, but it’s no good whingeing about things we can’t change, just make the best of things. If I didn’t live in the shade of surrounding trees, I’d have a car port with solar panels on the roof and drive an elecric car. Maybe if electric cars had a solar panel on the roof and a converter to store power in the battery, they might be more efficient. I heard a few years ago about an ultra thin flexible panel so it may yet happen. Narrowboats have them. It might only run the radio, the lights and the heater, but it would help.

it’s totally wrong to treat the motorist who uses these facilities as mugs – avoid these rip off merchants completely – and with modern day gps mobs to be able to find a supermarket alternative just off a junction of a motorway, plan your journey well and you’ll never need to use them – and eventually if we all do that they’ll either lower the price or shut up shop cause they’re going out of business

I stopped filling up at any motorway service stations around 30 years ago, purely because of the rip off prices. Even in those days before Sat Navs which tell you where the stations are, it was far cheaper to “wing it” at a junction and look for cheaper fuel.

We are near a motorway and its services. It is noticeable that lorry drivers in the know take a 1.5 mile detour to an Esso station to save about 20p a liter. If you need several hundred of them it is clearly worth the extra distance.

Got stung at A50 Derby South West bound for petrol and M4 Reading East bound for diesel. The price is so high your mind is momentarily baffled by it!

Well know fact.
Why anybody fills up at a motorway service station always amazes me

I have found that there are quite a lot of business men/women who use the service stations regularly to fill up as they don’t really care how much it is as the money is claimed back in expenses, so it’s no skin off their nose how much it is!

With respect, this article presents a biased picture against the operators of motorways’ and trunk roads’ service areas because it concentrates on their fuel prices relative to local retailers without investigating and explaining the reasons for the differences. Unlike supermarket filling stations, the operators rent those sites from the Department for Transport (DFT) which, in turn, is required by law (the Public Contracts Regulations) to obtain the best-value returns from those leases. As a result, Service Area plots cost a lot more per square metre than supermarket sites.
Not only that, but their parking and filling station areas greatly exceed the areas of the retail premises on the sites and the operators are required to maintain their surfaces in a safe condition – for pedestrians and motorcyclists who are most vulnerable to potholes, and to keep them free from ice and snow. They also have to ensure the foul drainage keeps working for public health reasons and the surface water drainage doesn’t block and trigger flooding. The operators are contractually obliged by the DFT to stock fuel and staff the filling stations 24 hours/day, 7 days/week including public holidays. For staff safety under the Health & Safety at Work Act, they must have more than one employee on shift at any time. Given that most motorway services have separate sites for each carriageway and, often, separate filling stations for cars and lorries, even the “Graveyard Shift” needs 4-8 employees in the filling stations, whether or not there are any customers at the pumps. In comparison, many supermarket filling stations are automated, unmanned and shut down overnight, minimising their costs.
Fuels at motorway and trunk road service areas have always been more expensive than local retailers for these reasons. As a result they get fewer customers than supermarkets, so their overhead costs are much greater on each litre that they do sell. Staff in the retail and refreshment sections of service areas are additional, of course. All staff have to be paid and are entitled to paid holidays and sickness cover.
Ask yourself, Kitty Bates, would you take on a 10+ year lease for a service area under those conditions AND try to price-match local supermarkets? You’d be bankrupt within twelve months.

The French used to list cheap filling stations near the motorway/peage junctions. Might be a useful app, using gps info., and Sat nav..

Grayling, how does he cling on. The government and local authorities are the biggest grabbers of motorists cash. They are so deep in the trough they can’t see it. Never use motorway garages, it’s organised legalised extortion allegedly.