"Annabel Smyth" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 at 06:47:09, Robin Cox
wrote:


There is a picnic area at Heston (M4) Eastbound.

There is also a current planning application to build 120 units of
affordable housing on it - which makes me think that not many
people
picnic there.

Yes, but there are picnic areas at a good many other service areas -
that's not special. The point is, why not have just picnic/rest
areas?
Why do we need, every single time, a petrol
station/restaurant/expensive
shop? Obviously we do need those, but *every* rest area?

Given that, from what I've seen, the UK services aren't very
frequent/close together, having alternate service provision could be
somewhat annoying.
eg M40 has, as I recall, 2 sets of services, Junction 8 and another up
near warwick... not exactly that close, and enough to make a
difference that if you didn't know the later services had been
converted to remove its petrol station you could end up running out
before reaching the next on the M6/M5/ birmingham.
Also, as previously mentioned, the M25 is somewhat lacking with only 3
sets of services.

Or are you propsing these picnic areas in addition to existing
services rather than removing petrol/other facilities from every other
service area.