Haven’t been tramping long but the prices on 24hour stays in most places is borderline ■■■■! £30 to park and maybe a shower. Welcome break deserve a good ■■■■■■ themselves. Is there any incentive to regulate or encourage fairer pricing on drivers and their vehicles? Definitely need more independent truck stops
Pagjake:
Is there any incentive to regulate or encourage fairer pricing on drivers and their vehicles?
No
Pagjake:
Definitely need more independent truck stops
That will never happen, nimby-ism, financial pressures, profit margins etc mean you have more chance of seeing pigs fly than seeing more truck stops being built.
What are the costs involved in running a motorway services? Without knowing about that side of it, then you can’t know if it’s too expensive.
I’m happy to agree that it seems extortionate, but then again the average build cost of a motorway services is around £30 million. They also pay for the build of the slip roads, motorway signage and maintenance thereof. The way our motorway services are structured means that compared with abroad, services are sometimes further apart in comparison and almost certainly catering to greater numbers, which means they need to be larger, which in turn means that at quiet times, they are lighting/heating etc a larger area without the revenue. Additionally Uk services are funded entirely by the operator as opposed to being leased from a local authority.
It’s a symptom of a wider problem, high land prices in the UK, and the high costs involved in running a business. If providing truck parking was a little gold mine then truck parks would be popping up everywhere,
Truckstops are large pieces of land that stand idle most of the day until the overnighters come in from 4 ish time and gone by 7.00am not enough revenue to make it viable.
There’s other restrictions as well now. New ones for example are not allowed to have a bridge between the two, so they can’t even have a smaller version one side and more facilites on the other side.
Sorry, it tends to be a bugbear of mine that people complain about charges ( sometimes it’s justified!) and yet don’t always know the costs involved. Probably because I have to do the rates here I’m more aware.
Pagjake:
Haven’t been tramping long but the prices on 24hour stays in most places is borderline ■■■■! £30 to park and maybe a shower.
Simple answer to that mate…Avoid them. 
Use them for your shower and find somewhere else to park.
Simple answer is don’t pay. It’s a business expense that your boss can pay to run his business.
While I agree that there is not enough parking, some drivers think that been a lorry driver gives you a divine right to use everything for free,
Most I see moaning about parking costs are the ones who nip in for a shower and go and not spending a thing…
Honked:
Simple answer is don’t pay. It’s a business expense that your boss can pay to run his business.
Our lot pay parking but are not too keen on paying MSA extortionate rates, can’t blame them either.
Even if they did pay willinglly, I would still avoid them on principle. 
Always thought MSA’s were a rip off when i used to drive in the UK 20+ years ago but £30 is just plain ridiculous! Seems nothings changed in the UK with poor facilities and over charging, along with clogged road networks (and climate) its one of the reasons i got away from it to work in mainland Europe. Over here drivers are not treated like something dirty on the bottom of your shoe (or crocs or flip flops) with mostly excellent places to stop. I dont use this particular app as my two routes are always the same but other drivers here on groupage find it quite useful…infinum.co/client-work/truck-pa … ope?ref=cw
I always thought the service slip roads were a responsibility of the highways agency ? hence they cannot give you a ticket for parking on them ( if they have a layby of course, or a long load bay ) anyway i think their prices are an absolute joke £25 - £30 just to park…with no security whatsoever…thurrock is one of the worst…but they do make room in the car parks for overnight parking of trucks…i always find it great fun on my Bulgarian number plates, where i can park with impunity and not pay a penny…sadly i use the showers too…but spend in other areas for food…i am one of the lucky ones i guess. 
lolipop:
Truckstops are large pieces of land that stand idle most of the day until the overnighters come in from 4 ish time and gone by 7.00am not enough revenue to make it viable.
Additionally, in the space it require to provide one truck parking space, parking for three or four cars containing maybe ten or twelve customers could be provided.
truckyboy:
I always thought the service slip roads were a responsibility of the highways agency ? hence they cannot give you a ticket for parking on them ( if they have a layby of course, or a long load bay ) anyway i think their prices are an absolute joke £25 - £30 just to park…with no security whatsoever…thurrock is one of the worst…but they do make room in the car parks for overnight parking of trucks…i always find it great fun on my Bulgarian number plates, where i can park with impunity and not pay a penny…sadly i use the showers too…but spend in other areas for food…i am one of the lucky ones i guess.
Is your BG regd truck a r. hand drive white Iveco pulling a Euroliner by any chance TB?
There can’t be many fit that description, and it passed me near Plymouth somewhere just before Christmas, and I wondered if it was you.
Honked:
Simple answer is don’t pay. It’s a business expense that your boss can pay to run his business.
Is the right answer.
Any driver who pays to park the boss’s truck out of his or her own pocket and who does not claim the amount back deserves everything they get. I spent £71 of the firm’s money to stay in a hotel last night but do I care? No. I can’t understand drivers who get wound up over something that is a business expense and it paid by the employer, such as parking, diesel, the list goes on.
truckyboy:
…i always find it great fun on my Bulgarian number plates, where i can park with impunity and not pay a penny…
Thats the way, shove it to em… 
I haven’t done tramping for a while now, but are there still drivers out there that are paying to park out of their own pocket? Do they think that the night out money is to be used for parking?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Dear oh dear.
robroy:
Honked:
Simple answer is don’t pay. It’s a business expense that your boss can pay to run his business.Our lot pay parking but are not too keen on paying MSA extortionate rates, can’t blame them either.
Even if they did pay willinglly, I would still avoid them on principle.
I find haulage rates extortionate please could you reduce them That’s why I avoid using haulage firms on principles (But when I was an OD I thought rates were too low )
speedyguy:
robroy:
Honked:
Simple answer is don’t pay. It’s a business expense that your boss can pay to run his business.Our lot pay parking but are not too keen on paying MSA extortionate rates, can’t blame them either.
Even if they did pay willinglly, I would still avoid them on principle.I find haulage rates extortionate please could you reduce them
But unlike MSA’s you’ll always find some mug in haulage who’ll drop the rate just to get the job. 
and problaby do it by refusing to pay parking fees.
albion:
Sorry, it tends to be a bugbear of mine that people complain about charges ( sometimes it’s justified!) and yet don’t always know the costs involved. Probably because I have to do the rates here I’m more aware.
If you knew how much profit is made on a small latte at Moto, you wouldn’t be thinking of the operators. I used to work at Toddington North and the profit numbers on that site were mind-blowing. Which is how Compass Group managed to keep the loss making Little Chef chain running for the better part of a decade before calling it quits on that brand. Anyway, I wouldn’t mind paying £10 for parking and claiming that back, then buying my own food, paying a quid or two for a decent shower, grabbing a coffee and a bacon sarnie in the morning before heading off. I do complain about paying £31 for parking at Clackett Lane and getting broken into overnight.
Olog Hai:
Honked:
Simple answer is don’t pay. It’s a business expense that your boss can pay to run his business.Is the right answer.
Any driver who pays to park the boss’s truck out of his or her own pocket and who does not claim the amount back deserves everything they get. I spent £71 of the firm’s money to stay in a hotel last night but do I care? No. I can’t understand drivers who get wound up over something that is a business expense and it paid by the employer, such as parking, diesel, the list goes on.
Yes, to a certain extent. The night before New Years Eve I paid for parking out of my own pocket because while there was plenty of free parking around, I decided to stop at Ulceby Truck Stop to get a hot meal either side of sleeping. It was my decision, there was no business case for it, (I was empty) so I didn’t mind paying.
On the flipside, I did a week for Woodlands Haulage a couple of months back and one night decided, for the shower and a hot meal reasons, to park at Caneby Corner, despite the O-Centre being less than a mile away, (the house was over an hours drive away so I was in the cab no matter where I parked it). £15, included a meal and the boss wouldn’t let me pay for it. I did say that it was my choice so I should pay for it but he was insistent, I had incurred an expense while in his truck, the company would pay. I suppose thats the difference between a graduate Transport Manager and one who has actually sat in a truck, this one cared.
I’m writing the business plan for my own trucks now and have accounted £80 a week for overnight parking. Any driver I put in a wagon will be made aware that that is the budget for ONP and if they go over they pay the difference. If they want to park on MSAs every night it will cost them a packet. If they want to park in laybys every night it won’t. If they want to fight a little smart and find the truckstops, they can get a meal and a shower every night of a five day week and not spend a penny of their own. For any full-timers I end up taking on, (assuming of course that my numbers are right and the first truck makes a profit!), a chunk of anything they save over the year might very well find its way into their case of Stella at Christmas, that way we both win.