A small communal seating area in the lower level of Knutsford, on the Southbound side, beside Costa and opposite WHSmith. This seating serves Costa & Burger King (possibly also the outdoor West Cornwall Pasty kiosk) and acts as a secondary seating area to the larger, more luxurious one on the footbridge. This pic evidences the dated, actually rather depressing interior of Knutsford. Moto have never really invested much into the site as an adjacent junction being redesigned meant they planned to rebuild Knutsford, however, this never came to fruition and the old 1963 Top Rank building remains. There are windows at the back of this seating area, but they only provide a view of the car park. These lower level areas at either side of the footbridge are extensions. When the site first opened in 1963, it was primarily a footbridge buffet restaurant with two car parks. As footfall has continuously risen due to Knutsford’s location on the M6 between Manchester & Birmingham, extensions have been needed, resulting in two tiny service areas with a large bridge between. No other Moto site obtains this unique design and it does make the site seem somewhat disorganised. The limited seating may create issues when the place is busier during holidays & there’s virtually no outdoor seating. I can imagine this seating area will be refurbished soon as the Costa is soon to be renovated. Communal seating area was in rather high demand during my visit as Knutsford Southbound was busy at the time (more awkward to take a photo). Despite how disorganised Knutsford seems, I like how unique it is as no other motorway services has a total of 3 customer seating areas and there seems to be an integrated mix of shops and food places throughout as opposed to some of these sites where shops are located in the lower levels and all the food units are on the bridge (Leicester Forest East).

Photo taken on 10/02/2024 by Tom Moon.

Assigned to galleries: Knutsford, M6 (England), Moto