At the southbound motorway services just south of Cheltenham on the M5. Having an Americano. I'll have more when I get to a more attractive café.
This is run by the same company that runs the Tebay services and while it is more attractive than pretty much every other motorway services it's not a place I would visit except to refuel. I still pine for the old style Welcome Break.
I've not bought food in that service area - and I don't in any of them - but I have heard a lot of people say those two (Tebay and Gloucester) are generally much better than most of them.
You ordered only a plain cup of black coffee though!
(Why the trade insists a plain black coffee has to be called an 'Americano' when it is neither American nor Italian, and not even sold in either country, God knows... To justify inflated price perhaps?)
My usual stops on my very occasional M5-centred journeys, if on weekday mornings, are a refreshment-van in a layby near the Bridgewater junction; and for fuel and snacks, the filling-station on the entry to Tewkesbury, approached from the motorway.
I use the motorway services buildings only for the loos (enduring the loud, totally needless music falling out of their ceilings); and the grounds for refreshments I take with me. I plan not to buy fuel there unless absolutely necessary.
@ninalanyon That still ignores the reality of living in streets like that.
Even if chargers could be supplied, or householders pay for ducts, as you suggest:
- There is no room for public chargers in streets where everyone (and visitors) have to park at the kerb.
- There is never any guarantee anyone can park outside his or her own home, or even in the same road at busy times.
- Even if you can park more or less outside your house there is no guarantee you can place your car suitably close to the cable or charger, as posed in those web-site photographs.
If you live in a town-centre flat, typically above a shop, you will never be able to park by your home anyway.
This, from the government site, does show the planners are aware of the problem:
These solutions are most effective where a resident can park on-street by their property at least once per week.
The installation of a cross-pavement solution does not give the resident ownership or priority to the parking space outside their home, and this should be made clear to the resident. Exceptions to this may apply, when, for example, the space is a designated disabled parking bay.
That point about "ownership or priority" has always been the case.
What is clear though, that the matter is by no means as straightforwards as it may seem.
@ArishMell A low power charger with two connectors is similar in size to an old fashioned parking meter and can certainly be placed at the kerb. You just need posts at about ten metre spacing.
