£8.00 parking with a £15.00 reciept !! Thankyou very much…
Dizzy:
Again, thank you to all those that have replied, we have been looking at some potential sites today.Please to all those that have read and not replied, give me your opinions. This is really important to me and my family, and we need to make sure this is done right.
Many thanks
as the others have said
£10 - £12 for parking , simple fresh cooked food , clean showers and toilets should keep you full 
maybe free wifi in the cafe and wifi in the lorry park for a small charge - £1 an night or something like that !!!
I don’t do regular nights out but if I did I would certainly go for your sandwich idea 
what ever you decide - good luck with it !!
Good luck with your venture. I’ve idly pondered in the past as to what kind of a place I would create for truckers. I usually frequent South Mimms and every time I go there it gets worse, and it was bad to start with!
I’d like access to a pub, or at least some quality beer on site. I don’t agree with getting ratted and driving the next morning but I do enjoy a nice pint after a days work. For food, a proper resturant would be ideal. I don’t know if it’s economically possible in this country but whenever I’m in France, a sign of a good resturant is one that has trucks parked outside as it usually serves good food at a price affordable to drivers. It’d be nice to have a resturant service with decent, wholesome food - nothing fancy or expensive, but decent stuff like lasagne with salad, maccaroni cheese…mmm
Perhaps a bit of open grass space for some footballing or general exercise to help fend off the paunch!
A well stocked shop of the neccessary items, like jump leads, phone chargers, temporary mirrors and the like.
Access for water for filling drinking vessels and washing mirrors etc.
Computers with internet for those of us without laptops, live traffic information etc.
And a ■■■■■■■ barmaid would also pull in the crowds!
ive been in a truckstop that had a chillout room. no tv, just 3 sofas in a room,couple of tables and also it had a free book exchange . you know take a book in and take a different one out.
was atleast 15 years ago.
funny thing is i cant for the life of me think where it was. 
on different threads i seem to recall people mentioning gym equipment.
What Id like to see is decent parking, clean showers and toilets, decent home cooked food like lasagne, spag bol, pie and mash, roast dinners on a Sunday, a bar area with a pool table ( 
), like others say a chill out area, a shop which sells the usual stuff like magazines, newspapers, truck spares/accessories, and the essentials like tea/coffee and milk to keep in the cab and more importantly good friendy staff…
OK so I might not have turned a class 2 wheel in anger yet but I know these things through my nights out when I was a porter on removals…
Hi Dizzy,
Great idea, It can work beacause you understand the needs and requirements of most drivers. One thing to bear in mind is profit, we’ve all got to make it otherwise we’re fown the pan. As for what’s reasonable to pay, you might only want to charge EG £10-£15 per night but need to charge £20 because of your overheads and for it to remain profitable.
If you want to look at costings I would be happy to help.
PM me if your interested
Chris
Good idea hope it goes well, as all the others have said but include a gym.
Also stick it somewhere between Market Deeping and Spalding…Loads and loads of fridge trucks go past here every day.
If you could get a fuel site accepting all major fuel cards then anyone who draws more than say 400 litres would get free parking. (Or half price parking) Lorry men love bargains like that.
Something like that would be a major draw for trade.
Get a truckwash installed. Half price on 400 liters of fuel. Everyone likes a shiny rig.
Things like that get feet thru the door. Simple things like free coffee on fuel purchases. (Again, gets us into the shop)
Then make good money on the people you have inside your business.
Whatever you sell - good quality at a fair price. Not rocket science 
Secure barrier controlled parking
No changeovers
No gypo’s
Breaker One-Nine:
If you could get a fuel site accepting all major fuel cards then anyone who draws more than say 400 litres would get free parking. (Or half price parking) Lorry men love bargains like that.Something like that would be a major draw for trade.
Get a truckwash installed. Half price on 400 liters of fuel. Everyone likes a shiny rig.
Things like that get feet thru the door. Simple things like free coffee on fuel purchases. (Again, gets us into the shop)
Then make good money on the people you have inside your business.
Whatever you sell - good quality at a fair price. Not rocket science
Secure barrier controlled parking
No changeovers
No gypo’s
but a fuel site would be noisy all night and make it hard to sleep and i doubt if the profit from 400 litres would cover the loss of parking money !
If the premises is licenced you could call it the “Underrun Bar”
and i doubt if the profit from 400 litres would cover the loss of parking money !
I was thinking similar. Actually, there is no “profit” on bunkered fuel as you never own it, just a through put handling fee, which is very small.
What about the companies who don’t draw fuel away from base?
Don’t need fuel to be a successful truckstop, as others have said, see the Stockyard.
When tramping up the M1 i would always try and make jn29 truckstop. Always fills up early which shows its good.
I must say the meals were always good and found it to be clean thats going back a few years now about 15 to be honest but I did a stint about 2 years ago when I started going in there and found it still to be good clean value for money
Dizzy I no longer have to use tuck stops due to woking with medical units, but this country needs more entrepenuers like yourself who will take a punt in the market of providing good sevice,
Location will be impotant, anything more than a few mins of a main trunk route would restrict the quantity of vehicles parking.
Pesonaly looking at MSA prices, if you put secure parking, clean showers , and inclusive good quality evening meal ,I would say £18,is achievable without mentioning on the reciept meal included, you would encourage those who’s company would pay parking in the doors, with the driver getting the benifit of a free nosebag.
A bar is essential to provide a meeting place, but the suggested quiet area needs consideration, I know from personal experiance some nights you just want a comfortable place other than the cab to chill out.
It would also be wothwhile to look at building an account based clientel ie DHL Wincanton, any fleet over 20, ect at a discounted rate into your business plan, as this will encourage your bankers you can deliver regular income, above ad hoc numbers, but be sure to make strict payment terms.
The Idea of pre ordered take away to pick up the next day is great, but the quality has to surpass your competitors.
Good luck.
If I ever end up back on general I hope I can find the kind of service you wish to supply
The one thing that sometimes annoy me is truckstops that have fuel facilities, but only except either only one type of fuel card or, all types of fuel cards but not cash or cash cards. Some of us still dont have fuel cards especially in this climate we are in, so anything to help us guys get fuel… AND AD-BLUE… and we’d be in there like a shot.
Though I think £10-£15 a night sounds reasonable, decent male and female showers, male/female toilets, decent home cooked food with a special each day of the week, a shop that sell’s stuff we are likely to buy and need, a seperate reefer park, and accept bonded loads (there aren’t that many TS’s that do now.)
i have thought of doing something similar, as we have an old building/land near me that would/could be an ideal area but not only for truckstop but for cars ect especially as its on a main route for the coast as well as a bikers meeting place weekends ect…
one thing i would do though is have a small block of toilets on the truckstop part itself, i think we all know what the truckparts of service stations smell like!
I would operate a nice clean site, reasonable in price, good fresh locally sourced food catering for most tastes, good security and maybe a discount for regular users/hauliers like a season ticket use it daily or similar and get a free week after so long or similar,
How about a seperate enclosure for short stay parking only?
For the lads who are just pulling in for less than 2 hours - Keep them away from those taking their daily rest.
AND clamping for those ■■■■-■■■ 7.5 tonne drivers who think they are diving ‘big lorries’ and park in the Abnormal load bays.
Breaker One-Nine:
How about a seperate enclosure for short stay parking only?For the lads who are just pulling in for less than 2 hours - Keep them away from those taking their daily rest.
If the set-up allows - long stay at rear - short stay at front with the building seperating the two.
Rikki-UK:
Mr B:
Anywhere near the m6 and you’ll always be busy as for what’s needed nothing too flash good home cooked food, bar, showers in fact pay a visit to the stockyard to see how it should be doneThis says it all, the Stockyard doesnt cater to the lowest common demonitator, it provides a decent service at a reasonable price,and most importantly in my view treats drivers exactly the same as every other customer in the pub… its a food serving pub that has truck parking. and its attitude and service reflects that.
I would have to say Stockyard is THE best stop I have used in the country good prices, £9 to park free showers, which have room too move.
Food is good homecooked style and the bar is full of friendly joe public too.
The Stockyard is a good model to base upon…without a doubt.
As for location, I live in Kettering so can tell you the place to put it would be Jct 1 welford, not the welford stop itself, but there is a site there which has outline permission for a rest area service area
Any where between Kettering and Thrapston as you catch all the A14 traffic the A45 A605 and A43…
Hard standing, security fencing and CCTV, plenty of rubbish bins, clean showers, a shop selling essential spares with ludicrous 24v “Love Call” trucking doo-daddery as an option if there’s enough space for it.
A CLEAN restaurant (amazing how many can’t get this right). Nice wooden tables and chairs, not those horrible plastic things. No Formica.
■■■■■ looking waitresses with ■■■■■■■■ would be an advantage (or is that just me? )
Don’t bother with a truckwash unless you have space for a proper one and can find plenty of staff to man it, don’t bother with those Muppets with a hand-pushed brush powered by a Puch Maxi engine because they are crap.
Somewhere around the £10-£12 mark for parking, including shower, or £16 with a £5 meal voucher maybe.
Personally, I’ve always thought the Three Squirrels on detling Hill would make the perfect truckstop if only it had bigger parking.
Id echo pretty much everything mentioned previously by my compatriates including the idea of gym/fitness facilities for those of us that want to work up a sweat(without the help from the wife :laughing: ) and also healthy options on the catering side as well as just having the greasy spoon` option