Ian Jelf wrote:
In message , Annabel Smyth
writes
On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 at 17:36:35, Dave Liney
wrote:

As the price of fuel
on motorway service announcement signs is no longer displayed,
presumably because of the effort required, it isn't something I'd
rely on happening.

They seem to manage in France.

Talking of which, why can't we have what they have in France and
Germany, where only every other service area has petrol and food,
but
the intermediate ones have a place to park, with picnic tables and
loos and possibly/probably telephones and a local information
board?
"Les aires de repos", or "rest areas", a wonderful idea and one
which I, too, can't understand why we've never repeated here.

In fact, in France at least, the proportion of these to "full blown"
service areas is much greater, maybe four or five to one. Indeed,
large scale service areas are actually few and far between in
France; I know as I frequently used to have to find the blasted
places to keep groups of 49 people on British coaches happy!

I used to find that planning a stop for a meal on a French autoroute was
difficult until I discovered that Michelin's French Motorway Atlas (map
914) lists all service areas and their facilities.

We did, in fact, once have a single, solitary "aire de repos" in
Britain. It was called the Brent Knoll Picnic area and was on the
M5 in Somerset, in the shadow of the hill of the same name. It's
now been converted to a "full blown" service area called "Sedgemoor".

Wasn't there one on the M6 in the Lake District too?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)