‘I drove 112 miles to visit UK’s best services in Cotswolds and one thing stunned me’
A man drove over 100 miles to visit the UK's best rated service station - and was left surprised by the cost of food[1] at the place. Gloucester[2] Services, which is situated on the M5, recently topped a poll of more than 100 stations across the UK in Which? based on customer feedback. The family-run facility, which is run by the Westmorland family, earned five-star ratings in a number of categories, such as cleanliness, convenience, food and drink options as well as the outside space.
Journalist Josh Barrie, from the I, travelled 112 miles to check it out for himself. While he praised many of the aspects, the cost of snacks at the services hit him in the pocket. He wrote[3]: "The cold deli at the back is replete with arancini, mini quiches and fine-looking Scotch eggs.
Two savoury items cost me ?11.50." Other delicacies on offer include "locally made ice lollies" using "seasonal British fruits" along with pasta sauce from the Cotswolds which were being flogged for ?7.75.
Scotch eggs at the site do not come cheap (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Punters could also buy fresh pasta and award-winning charcuterie while there is a butcher's a cheesemonger and handmade chocolates. Gloucester Services offers a farm shop with locally sourced produce, with the food on offer so good TV producers made a programme about it with A Cotswold Farm Shop airing on Channel 4 in 2023.
The firm behind the service station said: "Westmorland is a family business, whose original motorway service area grew out of the family farm in Tebay, Cumbria, when the M6 as built through our land. Everything we do reflects those beginnings." That original site at Tebay was listed as number two in the Which? rankings.
In 2021 it was also the subject of a Channel 4 documentary.
The service station's farm shop even had a TV programme made about it (Image: Trip Advisor)
In it John Dunning, who saw the opportunity to build a motorway service station on his family's 1,000-acre dairy farm, explained the need farmers to "diversify" in a changing world, using the landscape they are afforded for more than growing or rearing food and incorporating sustainable practices into whatever businesses come about.
"I knew that living in this part of the world [Cumbria], we could only survive if we diversified the farm's activities.
"We are still a farming family, but we have managed to employ hundreds of local people - in Cumbria, that is significant."