Although I’ve not been driving that long, I like to think I know my home county pretty well, including the service stations. I certainly know the pain of waiting in traffic at the Dartford Crossing or Tunnel.
And my Essex upbringing means I wasn’t particularly surprised to hear that one service station had been named one of the UK’s worst after research by Which?. The consumer champion had polled thousands of its members to find the best and worst stops, and the Moto services in Thurrock by the M25 were named among the UK’s worst service stations, coming fifth from bottom in the ranking with a 35% customer score.
It was graded a one-star for its price of goods in shops and food outlets, the range and quality of shops, and the range and quality of food and drink outlets.
I popped into the services, off the roundabout from West Thurrock Way, to see what it’s like. Despite being Essex born and bred, I can’t remember ever visiting this poor service station.
That might be because it’s simply unmemorable, or because I used to live in Chelmsford and would be unlikely to need to pull over just a few miles away in Thurrock. But that doesn’t mean these services aren’t used by local people; we’ve all been tempted to grab a quick bite to eat or, perhaps more likely, made the unfortunate decision of not popping to the loo before getting on the road.
There are hundreds of parking spaces for people to pick from. If travelling southbound, you come off the slip road and face the lorry and HGV parking first. A little bit further along you find an area for caravans, and then there’s car parking. It feels like you must be ages from the main service station building, but it’s actually just that it’s got parking around two of it’s four sides.
Inside there’s not a huge amount of shops but again there’s not a huge amount to complain about: KFC, Greggs, Costa, M&S, WHSmith and Burger King can all be found inside so there’s plenty to pick and choose from.
It’s certainly no Peterborough Services, a particular favourite stop-off of mine when travelling to or from Nottingham, where they have El Mexicana, West Cornwall Pasty Co and Chopstix noodle bar, but I’m pretty content with Thurrock’s offering.
The services also had plenty of space for people to sit and enjoy their food or have a short rest after a period of travelling. There’s even a small outside area close to Costa which looks over the area’s surrounding countryside and a large lake. It’s actually a quite nice view all things considered, and certainly not what I’d expected from a service station. This aspect really surprised me.
I’m not going to have a huge love-in with the services at Thurrock. That would be weird. I won’t claim it’s absolutely amazing and a must-visit because that would also be bonkers. But in terms of service stations, it definitely does the job and I couldn’t find anything in particular to complain about.
