hi all,
to be honest,the bad experiences mentioned, sadly seem the normal encounter you get everywhere in the uk in this day and age.what these stupid chinless boss’ in their ivory towers don,t factor in is bad service,that does irreperable damage to any business.i am sorry to say but we seem to breed that couldn’t care less attitude that msa staff always seem to have in the uk…only.go anywhere else,even militant english hating france and you won’t see that.sorry boys i don’t have any answers,i just felt i needed to say that.goodluck
regards andrew
orys:
Harry Monk:
orys:
I like Britain for many things, but the truckstops here are a big disgrace.Well, it’s the entire transport network really, rail as well as road.
Yet Poland would not be a country I would dare to give you as an example of the good roads (although there are rapid changes to the better, we still have long way to go)
It’s a couple of years since I last went to Poland and you are right, although there have been improvements over the fifteen years I drove there, roads are still poor by western standards.
However, you are still less likely to sit in a traffic jam in Poland or anywhere else than England simply because the road is inadequate for the traffic which uses it. I’ve driven in 28 or 29 different countries at the last count and nowhere are things as bad as they are here.
Look at the roads in Italy. I’ve driven 60 miles without doing more than a couple of miles on terra firma- tunnel, viaduct, tunnel, viaduct, tunnel, viaduct etc etc etc
Why do we refuse to spend any money on our road network when we are quite happy to spend £40,000 a pop firing rockets into some godforsaken desert on the other side of the world every day of the week?
i kind of like junction 26 truckstop, the food is fine, the staff are fine, the toilets are clean.
the parking needs a drop of concrete.
and can the bloke on the quad bike please walk, instead of [zb]ing vroom, vroom, vroom, all [zb]ing night.
Inselaffe:
orys:
I stopped for food at Mostki truckstop on national 2Is that “Las Vegas”, Orys?
Been there myself, albeit only in the car last year.
Far superior to ANY so called “Truck Stop” in the UK.
Just goes to show how far the UK lags behind most of the rest of Europe
Yes, I guess it’s called “las vegas” now.
I know that place for years, we used to have our scout camps in the forrest nearby and we were visiting this place as they have the best supermarket in the area… I remember it when it was just a small truck park, and it was still much better than many UK truckstops.
Harry Monk:
However, you are still less likely to sit in a traffic jam in Poland or anywhere else than England simply because the road is inadequate for the traffic which uses it. I’ve driven in 28 or 29 different countries at the last count and nowhere are things as bad as they are here.
You are so wrong here… It’s rare that you’ll seat in Traffic jam in Poland on the motorway, that’s true, because there are almost no motorways, so you can always turn into side road and go arround the obstruction (and get advice on that from CB radio).
But the problem is the towns: you don’t have by-passes for most of them. And then here you are, my hometown::
vimeo.com/5098783
This is the town centre, and imagine, they recently banned lorries over 9 tons from there (as most of these roads were parts of the national trunk roads until recently). So where are the lorries?
They are pushed back from the town. Off course there is no orbital, so they just have to go via the suburbs, on the roads which are not suitable often even from small vilage (as many suburbs are just small vilages swallowed by the town, with hundreds of new homes but virtually no new road investitions).
As I saw on the other forum, it can take up to 6 hours to go throught Wrocław on the lorry now (you can go throught London faster!)
So what they did? They pushed lorries even further back from the town, and now they have to do a 80km diversion on some backroads, often too narrow and to weak for so heavy traffic. My friend is “lucky” to live in one of these villages where transit traffic is going through. It’s just a disaster!
So you are right, there is no “british style” traffic jams in Poland, but you DO sit a lot of time in traffic and your average speed is actually much, much lower.
So if any country should be in Sevres near Paris as a international standard of “place when roads are not sufficient to the amount of traffic”, I am sorry, but Poland has much better chances for that than England 
I’m not going to argue with you that Poland is better than England while you argue with me that England is better than Poland… that would be too surreal for words!
Harry Monk:
I’m not going to argue with you that Poland is better than England while you argue with me that England is better than Poland… that would be too surreal for words!
Especially as he lives in Scotland. 
Never having done continental myself I’ll ask you experienced blokes. Why do you think there’s such a difference in standards? Taking Germany as an example, are they state subsidised or totally free market?
Coffeeholic:
Harry Monk:
I’m not going to argue with you that Poland is better than England while you argue with me that England is better than Poland… that would be too surreal for words!Especially as he lives in Scotland.
Foreigners can’t tell the difference
44 Tonne Ton:
Never having done continental myself I’ll ask you experienced blokes. Why do you think there’s such a difference in standards? Taking Germany as an example, are they state subsidised or totally free market?
This is a good question. I would say that this is free market and competition.
As you can see from British MSA’s, as they have no competition on the motorway (and you even cant’ advertise your place on the side of the motorway), they do what they want…
Go to Belgium for instance or to Benelux or Germany - you have plenty of small places on the motorway, from small kiosks selling wurst to huge places just off of the motorway but still well posted - competition, that makes them so good.
I can’t tell if they are some subsidies, I am sure that in Poland they aren’t. To run MSA on the newly build motorway you have to start in tender and then you have worse or better, but usually run by world known companies. To start a truck stop on the national road all you need is a piece of land in good location…
But then why truckstops in UK, which are out of the motorways are so crap? Some on that forum say that it’s because land in UK is so expensive, but come on, we are all drivers, we all know hundred of wastelands next to the road where nothing is going on for years - i doubt that it will be too expensive to rent it…
Or maybe this is something I observe on the flat next to me: there is flat to let and it’s to let for year or more now. It’s very similar to one I rent, but it’s nearly 50% dearer. I told few friends that were looking for a flat that there is something to get, but they did not wanted to pay this price, and they did not wanted to put the price down… The flat is still empty.
I can’t understand it, it’s much better to rent out the property, even for smaller money, that to keep it emtpy… But maybe I don’t understand everything?
44 Tonne Ton:
Never having done continental myself I’ll ask you experienced blokes. Why do you think there’s such a difference in standards?
Over the water they don’t charge to park and if they do you get it all back by way of vouchers to spend in the shop or restaurant. There tends to be more places trucks can park. From small restaurants, the type of place which would not allow or have trucks parking in the UK, to large chain truck stops.
So, if you run a truck stop or restaurant which caters to drivers over there you live or die by the standard of your facilities. In the UK there is a dire shortage of parking places and those that are available get away with charging excessive amounts just to park, yes they may give you a voucher for a couple of quid off your meal but that is not the same as getting the full cost of the parking set against the cost of your food. If you have a UK truck stop where you are pretty much guaranteed a large amount of revenue just from the parking each night you really don’t have to put too much effort into the rest of your facilities, it’s not as if the driver has a wide choice of venues.
Some parts of Germany you rarely travel more than 3 or 4 junctions without seeing a sign for a truck stop and they also cater for all travellers and locals so that is another reason the standard is higher. It’s not unusual to see families out for an evening meal eating in the same restaurant you are.
Coffeeholic:
Some parts of Germany you rarely travel more than 3 or 4 junctions without seeing a sign for a truck stop and they also cater for all travellers and locals so that is another reason the standard is higher. It’s not unusual to see families out for an evening meal eating in the same restaurant you are.
What I miss in UK is also the small parkings on the motorway. You don’t need to park on the huge truckstop, if you need just the toilet or short rest, the small places are much better for me as they are not too crowdy.
In Germany, Benelux, France and other places I’ve been (or even on some of the new motorways in Poland) you have small parkings, often with a toilet, every 5 km or so. In UK they wasted the big laybe on A1 near wetherby (near the pedestrian bridge) and they cut it off after converting it to motorway - why?
44 Tonne Ton:
Never having done continental myself I’ll ask you experienced blokes. Why do you think there’s such a difference in standards? Taking Germany as an example, are they state subsidised or totally free market?
To tell you the truth, I think most of it comes down to government spending. Most of the governments in our fellow EU countries realise that most freight has to move by either road or rail. For this they plow money into it, not only that but most “E” roads in europe are tolled, so along with the government subsidy and the percentage of the toll money they have better facilities for drivers, and a hell of a lot closer together.
The good question is when is Lord Adonis 
going to go over there and see how they do it? never. He seems to think that we can park for free at MSA’s and that the food is excellent, WRONG! We get overcharged at MSA’s, even South Mimms is over expensive for what you get, and some of our so called truckstops are a disgrace. The only way we can win is to vote with our feet, and either…
a) every truck driver stops, which will never happen. 
b) vote in another government, which will be just as bad as this one. 
c) start our own government party and hopefully win over the truckers with promises of better roads, better facilities and better wages. 
But first of we need to stop parking at these places, I’d rather park in a layby than use J26, but I always try and make sure I’m at my tipping point the night before. I made a rant on here ages ago about Watling St truckstop which anyone can read A5 Watling St, Flamstead - OVERNIGHT PARKING - Trucknet UK… they are just as bad.
Edited 2 time in total
Rob K:
Coffeeholic:
ROG:
Is this the place being referred to in this thread
junction26.org/page.php?id=2
Yep, that’s the crap hole. How misleading is that website?
Rob K:
The place should be shut down and I’d gladly sign a petition to make it happen.Couldn’t agree more, boy do I regret signing the original petition. Any time I have been in recently I had the feeling I was an inconvenience to them getting through the day.
Food = crap
Service = crap and slow
Staff = miserable and rude, they really give the impression they don’t want you in there.
Thing is you can’t really complain too much at the time. Having spent a fair few years working in the catering trade I have first hand knowledge as to what happens when a customer complains to or about someone who is going to prepare and serve them food, definitely not recommended.
My theory is that they were never interested in providing food and hence why they make such a bad job of it. I get the impression that someone saw the overnight parking prices at yer average MSA round London and thought ‘hey we can cash in on this if we can get the usage changed on that field with Planning, and then we cream it in charging the trucking scum 20 quid a night’.
It’s difficult to guess just many trucks they can cram in there as I imagine some drivers would probably have something to say about being asked to park in the middle of a boating lake, but I reckon that 20 artics could be accommodated in there and from what I read it’s always full through the week. - A nice little earner for a ‘field’ at £400 a night. Why bother making any effort with the food when you can sit on your arse doing f-all and watch the £20s roll in?
Gosh! Do you think that’s it? Shoorly not…
Ok folks and thanks for the feedback, Dave the boss has printed all of these Posts and is going through each one as I type. He will sort these issues out and respond to you.
i still cant believe people actually pay for truck parking the uk
Hello all. This is my second reply post of the day, not sure why the first one has not appeared. Anyway sorry to here of the negative feedback from some of you. Dave the Boss is trawling through it and will respond directly to you.
I see both your posts, Roger…
Anyway it’s nice to see that some are bothering to take driver’s opinion into consideration. Let’s hope that it will bring some improvements.
Well as the truckstop man is taking note of our responses I reckon now would be a good time to tell him what YOU want from his establishment.
My own personal thoughts on what a truckstop like the one at J26 needs are as follows,
Hot food & drinks available from 4am to 10pm, if not 24hrs, there doesn’t have to be an extensive menu between 8pm & 6am & it could be take away only served through a hatch to avoid cleaning the seating area & washing up etc, one person & a few pies/sandwiches would be all that’s needed.
Level parking with clearly marked bays & a decent road surface, it doesn’t need to be concrete, but potholes & muddy puddles are not acceptable.
24hr clean toilets & showers, to keep them clean you need somebody to clean them after they’ve been used.
Reasonable service in the resturaunt, we’re limited in how long we can stop for, so need a good feed, a couple of cups of tea in half an hour or so, we’ve spent the day being cut up, sitting in traffic jams & being held up at RDCs etc so we would like to see a happy face behind the counter when we’re taking our break.
These are the basics, add them to good quality, reasonably priced food & you’re on to a winner.
Of course there’s also the other way, leave things as they are, there’s pretty much nowhere else to park locally so you’ll fill the place anyway.
newmercman:
Well as the truckstop man is taking note of our responses I reckon now would be a good time to tell him what YOU want from his establishment.
Good idea. So I can provide you with an information how proper truckstop should look like. I will use example of this Mostki truckstop I had mentioned before:
lasvegas website:
In the yard You find a comfortable hotel, a gas-station wich offers also LPG, a laundry for trucks, a restaurant, exchange, a pit-stop and a shop with car-parts.
For trucks we exclusevly offer a big, comfortable parking. 24h a day our security and our monitoring take care about you. In the restaurant we offer delicious dinners and drinks. This all for very attractive prices. The long experience of our cooks guarantee the high level of our restaurant. A friendly atmosfere, a restaurant within 80 places and a garden with 40 places, this it what You will find at us. We invite You to check out our actual menu. Online You go with us for free.
I think only thing they lack is a good translator 
A laundry for trucks made me realy laughing (they meant a truckwash, but off course laundry is also available)
Gallery is worth checking: lasvegascenter.pl/en/gallery.html
And that’s another one, in the same village (!)
port2000.pl/dzial/home/239/
Morons made website in Polish only, but if you click on various services, you can see pictures, it says it all.
Here you can see the two of them: maps.google.pl/maps?f=q&source=s … 9&t=h&z=14