Motorway Services Online

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Which is the busiest or biggest service area?

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Inside Cobham, Britain's biggest.

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The biggest motorway service area in the UK (and bigger than anything in Ireland) is Cobham on the M25. It stretches across two floors and opened in 2012, filling a large gap on a very busy section of motorway. Its 36-pump petrol station is one of the biggest in Britain. It's difficult to compare like-for-like, but Cobham would be a good candidate for the busiest official service area open to all vehicles in Europe.

As motorway service areas are private businesses, they do not publicise how busy they are. A rudimentary analysis of social media suggests Cobham gets talked about the most by customers. This would tally with our own website analytics, which show that Cobham is searched for the most. We already know it's the biggest, so it's a logical that it would be the busiest as well.

In fact as part of their justification for building Colne Valley services, in June 2021 Welcome Break (who provide some facilities at Cobham) stated unequivocally that Cobham is the UK's busiest service area.

Former Records

Watford Gap, one of the first service areas to open in the UK, was thought to be the busiest for a long while. Its importance would have dropped a little when the M40 was completed in 1991.

A media report in 1988 claimed that Hilton Park was actually the busiest, a claim that was made repeatedly during the 1990s, with Granada themselves saying in 1997 that it was the biggest service area in Europe. However, other reports claimed that the busiest was actually Membury (in 1985 and 1994), and Birch (in 1994).

Hilton Park's importance would have declined slightly as more service areas opened nearby, including Norton Canes in 2003. It's likely that another site claimed the top spot, with Strensham, Fleet, South Mimms and Toddington being other likely candidates, before Cobham conclusively claimed the title after 2012.

In terms of the biggest, again it is difficult to compare like-with-like. Toddington claimed the title in 1965, Aust took it in 1966, Leigh Delamere and Corley both claimed to be the UK's biggest when they opened in 1972, with Leigh Delamere claiming it more often. South Mimms said it would be the biggest in Europe before it opened in 1987, Tamworth said it was the biggest single-side service area in Europe in 1990. The new Strensham northbound claimed to the biggest in Europe in 1991, with Clacket Lane saying it was the biggest in Europe in 1993, and likely holding it until Beaconsfield opened in 2009, followed by Cobham in 2012. Some of these claims will have been inaccurate, or in need of small print.

Busiest Day

In addition to the biggest and the busiest service area, you could also ask about the busiest single day.

Unsurprisingly there is no official record or way to compare different operators. However, a reasonable guess for the UK would be 31 August 2021.

The summer is always the busiest season for leisure traffic, and the August Bank Holiday is usually where that peaks. August 2021 was especially busy because the recent relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions meant there were many people who would normally go abroad in August, or who would normally go on holiday earlier in the year, but decided to take a holiday in Britain over that weekend instead.

Roadchef said that this August Bank Holiday was "without question, one of the busiest weekends in our trading history". They said the trade at Killington Lake and Taunton Deane was "record breaking", and named Strensham as their busiest single site. Other service areas on the M5 are likely to have a similar story. Across 30 sites and three days Roadchef reported selling 200,000 burgers and 230,000 hot drinks.

The exact results will vary depending on whether you are looking at footfall, profit, turnover or traffic levels; whether you're analysing a whole day or a specific hour; and whether you're looking at one site or the whole country. As a general rule, you're unlikely to see a combination of factors leading to a weekend as busy as that Bank Holiday for a long time.

See also: Smallest, Facts and Figures