Guide to Tibshelf services

With its late '90s design on an otherwise mostly 1960s motorway, Tibshelf could be accused of being slightly "twee" with its style.

Facilities

Catering: Coco di Mama, Costa Coffee, Fresh Food Café, McDonald's, Costa Express, Krispy Kreme, Costa Drive Thru Shops: on both sides: Phone Tech, WHSmith
plus northbound only: SPAR Amenities: on both sides: Changing Places, Jackpot £500, Showers
plus northbound only: UK Truck Clean Truck Wash Outdoor Space: Grass areas at back of car parks Charging Points: GRIDSERVE Electric Highway 50kW CCS, 50kW CHAdeMO & 22kW Type 2 Forecourt: Shell, Select, Deli by Shell, Costa Express, Free Cash Machine

Parking Prices

First 2 hours free for all vehicles, after which cars must pay £13 and HGVs, caravans and motorhomes £30. HGVs can pay £33 to include a £10 food voucher.

Prices are paid in the shop or by using NexusPay. The location code is 2274 (northbound) and 2276 (southbound).

HGVs can also pay by using SNAP. The location code is 8005 (northbound) and 8006 (southbound).

The fees are strictly enforced by GroupNexus.

This information is provided to us by third parties. You should always check with staff on site.

Contact Details

Trivia and History

The service area is positioned close to Tibshelf Ponds and the Five Pits Trail. Some motorists use the service area as an unofficial place to park and walk around to the countryside.

Inside the service area is a series of promotional flags which still use the old (late-1990s) Roadchef logo.

Tibshelf used to proudly boast that "no other service station offers you such flexibility and choice". No-one knows exactly what they meant or where this extra choice was.

The northbound side underwent major refurbishment works in February 2015. The southbound side was due to follow and gain a SPAR store in the process but this has been put on hold indefinitely. Instead, the Costa store received a major refurbishment in January 2022 with a new Costa Express zone, self service order kiosks and segregated areas within the seating area with workspaces for business users and a relaxation area with comfy seats and sofas.

Coco Di Mama was added to the northbound Fresh Food Café in June 2023, following a successful trial at Norton Canes during 2022. The southbound Fresh Food Café then followed in summer 2023. Both sides also gained Changing Places facilities in 2023.

An additional shower block was added to both sides in late 2023, adding an additional three showers to each side. Roadchef are also seeking to add more electric vehicle charging points and a canopy to the northbound side, while the HGV parking area will be expanded to 90 spaces. This will involve moving the coach park to the back of the hotel, with a new road running past the back of the amenity building.

The Days Inn hotel situated on the northbound side closed in November 2024 for refurbishment. The hotel is set to relaunch in early 2025 and will be Roadchef's first major revamp under the Days Inn brand.

Planning

See also: M1 Service Area Planning

The service area was planned to be a few hundred yards further up the M1. Underneath the Mansfield Road bridge are two ghost slips (partly removed in the 2016 roadworks). These lined up with two more that were removed to build the entry from the current Tibshelf services.

These four ghost slips were built with the M1, and would have allowed a more traditional service area (with straight slip roads) to be built in the field north of the modern Tibshelf services. This was planned to be done when the adjacent two service areas reached full capacity. A total of 19 acres was purchased by the Ministry of Transport for developing into the service area, though it was listed as a very undesirable site. Some of that land was later sold to develop Willow Court, which makes the original plan harder to imagine.

In 1992, the government were no longer responsible for identifying the sites of new motorway services. Instead developers could build them wherever they wanted to, and at Tibshelf two firms took an interest: Swayfields (representing Welcome Break and Texaco) received planning permission for Newtown services at Newtownwood Lane, and South East Oil Co/Hallam Land Management received planning permission for Sherwood Parc services at Huthwaite Lane.

Under the policy at the time, only one of those two sites could be connected to the motorway. The Highways Agency were more impressed by the Swayfields plan, and selected them. In 1997 Welcome Break left the partnership, and Swayfields chose Roadchef to work with them instead. Roadchef would build the main building, while Swayfields would operate the petrol station under the name Gold Star, with Texaco branding. Roadchef tried to use the name Chesterfield services, but eventually settled on Tibshelf.

The unused Sherwood Parc plan had a small, L-shaped amenity building with a tall, glass roofed atrium in the corner of the L. There were looped slip roads. It would have probably been sold to an established operator. They later encountered land ownership issues.

Meanwhile, the Department of Transport confirmed in 1995 that they would be selling the land they had been reserving for their service area, as it wasn't needed. They added a new name to the mix, repeatedly referring to the new development as Sutton in Ashfield services.

Finer Details

When planning permission was awarded for Tibshelf, there was a plan to widen the M1 to five lanes in each direction, which would involve demolishing the Saw Pit Lane bridge. This gave the developer a blank canvas to design the slip roads however they liked.

When it came to actually constructing it, the M1 widening plans had been cancelled and the Saw Pit Lane bridge was set to stay. This meant several changes and departures from the engineering standards were required to build the slip roads, which now had to be slightly longer to account for the motorway being smaller. This angered Hallam Land Management, who felt that their plan was better.

Local public footpath 18 used to cross the site of the northbound service area. Welcome Break's original plan would have placed this in a new subway under the slip roads, but this would have been expensive. Roadchef wanted a zebra crossing across the top of the slip roads, but the footpath was soon removed from the plan. The old gate can still be seen on Saw Pit Lane.

Space was left for hotels at both the northbound and southbound service area.

Alternatives

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