It's also surprising that there aren't signs at each junction on the M25
to the
nearest off-motorway services where you could at least get a cup of coffee
and a Mars Bar, and go to the loo.

Of course there's no reason this concept would only need to be confined to
the M25 - at almost all US Interstate exits there is signage to nearest
available Fuel, Food and Lodging, both as lists as you approach the exit,
and as directions from the slip road.

Dspite the fact this has to be a *very* low cost solution (after all, its
just a bit of research, and some signage), I doubt it would ever happen.

Undoubtedly, the existing service areas operators would go out of their way
to lobby for killing the proposal before it started, even if it were
intended only to be used in areas where there are no service area: their
underlying fear would be it could lead to a groundswell of support for
widening the concept to areas where it could cause competition with what
they regard as their god (or, at least, Department for Transport -- DfT)
given right to hugely over-charge consumers at existing service areas.

So I doubt that DfT, even working to a Government that allegedly isn't in
the back pockets of "big business", would have the guts to introduce the
concept in the face of such probable opposition. Indeed, it could well be
that such an obvious idea has already been considered and rejected for this
reason, I suppose!