Gloucester Services: life in the slow lane

Gloucester-Motorway-Services This is the best service station ever!” That was the view of, if you’ll excuse the sweeping generalisation, a gentleman who looked every inch the traditional coach driver.

“Why can’t all motorway services stations be like this?” is the most quoted question on numerous online forums about Gloucester Services, between junctions 11a and 12 on the busy M5. It is a good question. Why can’t all MSAs be like Gloucester Services?

Maybe because Gloucester Services is not run by a traditional operator. It is owned and run by a family. A family that views itself as a food producer, and not necessarily a service station operator. And that is what makes all the difference.

“We’re not reflective of the industry,” says Westmorland Family chief executive Sarah Dunning, recounting the story of how her parents got into the MSA business more than 40 years ago.

John and Barbara Dunning were Cumbrian farmers rearing cattle and sheep. Then, in the 1970s, the M6 was developed. The government identified a site perfect for a motorway service station – inconveniently for the Dunnings, this ran straight through their land. But with true entrepreneurial spirit, the couple seized an opportunity to diversify and in 1972 opened the small motorway service area in Tebay, running the business in partnership with a local family bakery. They ran the business until 2005, when Sarah took over.

“The premise of the businesses for us is very different to the other motorway service areas,” she says. “That is why it feels different coming here. Our origins are different, our ownership is different. Right from the beginning we created businesses that were a reflection and celebration of the place they were in, from the architecture, to the products we sell, to the people we employ.”

And it really does feel different at Gloucester Services. Pulling up to the station, you are not greeted with brand upon brand, but rather with a grass-covered, unassuming structure that looks more like an eco-house off the latest series of Grand Designs than the typical box-like MSA structure.

“We service the same customer market as the MSA owners, but we don’t have any franchises here,” says Dunning. “Our offer is really simple. We have a farm shop, a café and a take-out. We make all our food in our own kitchens and our farm shop is an amalgam of really interesting local producers.”

This is where Westmorland’s identification of itself as a food producer pays dividends to customers. At Gloucester Services alone, the group works with 130 food producers from within a 30-mile radius and a further 70 from adjoining counties.

“Our suppliers are really important to us,” adds Dunning. “Working with farmers and producers and doing interesting stuff with them is a real driver for us.

“Suppliers, staff and customers are all interconnected. One leads to the next so we need to work on it on all fronts.”

Making sure that suppliers, staff and ultimately the customer have a pleasurable experience – rather than the painful experience many of us will experience at MSAs – is what matters. And when you have some 10m people through the doors each year (Tebay and its affiliated businesses included), you have to get it right.

And you must do that from the get-go. Getting planning for a motorway service area is notoriously difficult. Drivers want somewhere to fill up, take a comfort break, stretch their legs and get a much-needed caffeine and food fix.

But local residents rarely want one on their doorstep, especially as the great British motorways often carve their way through some of the country’s most beautiful landscapes.

Getting planning for Gloucester Services was no different. The site, on the edge of picturesque Gloucestershire village Brookthorpe, had originally been subject to a planning application from Roadchef in 1994. That was turned down and it wasn’t until 2009, when the Dunning family was approached by Mark Gale of the Gloucestershire Gateway Trust, that ambitions for a new MSA started to look achievable.

“Mark wanted to create a sustainable income for his charitable work and for us it was a great way to make a connection with the local community. We were incomers so it was a great way for us to put down roots in a community of which we weren’t yet part,” says Dunning.

“It was hugely important to us that there was a locality that felt proud of this business. It is about being holistic with your approach. Whether it is architecture, working with food producers, how we work with our staff, or how we put back into local communities through the charity, that only works if it sits at the heart of what you do.”

In 2011, Westmorland got planning for Gloucester Services on the first attempt, which is virtually unheard of in the MSA world. And it is not like the application was without its challenges.

Overlooked by the Cotswold escarpment, an area of outstanding beauty, the CPRE, Natural England and locals were always going to be sensitive to proposals. As were competitors – Welcome Break launched an unsuccessful judicial review challenge against Stroud District Council in 2012. Then there was a recession to deal with. But by spring 2014, the northbound services were open and operational, with southbound services following a year later.

Since then the business has grown, adding 400 people to Westmorland’s now 1,000-strong workforce and helping boost turnover to almost £90m. Not bad for a farming family.

“This was our first expansion,” says Dunning. “We have a good business up in Cumbria, but it is a business that has grown incrementally over 40 years. We would never gone through the challenge of growing our model and doing so in a different place.”

She adds: “We are a family business and it is important for us to stay that way. Will we grow further? We will always be interested in opportunities but we would never do it at the cost of what we stand for.

“We are not in the business of growing into a giant but are always interested in new projects and things that will challenge us.”

But wandering round Gloucester Services, seeing weary travellers perk up as they are greeted with a display of colourful, fresh fruit and veg, and as the architecture and landscaping helps them feel a million miles away from one of the country’s busiest motorways, you have to wonder if the challenge is more for the traditional MSA operators than for Westmorland.