Welcome Break services have officially been recognised and awarded top marks by the country’s national tourist board, VisitEngland. Welcome Break’s Charnock Richard site, located on the M6 in Lancashire, is one of only seven Motorway Service Stations from across the country to have been awarded a Top 5* star rating as part of VisitEngland’s annual Motorway Service Area Quality Scheme. Furthermore, 13 of Welcome Break’s sites were awarded a 4* rating, with the remainder all given a 3* accreditation.
Anonymous visits
As part of the Scheme, VisitEngland Assessors anonymously visited all the operators’ individual sites twice over the last 12 months and completed a thorough quality report. On each visit, the Assessor looked at the whole of the customer journey, from initial arrival right through to the use of facilities, retail and catering outlets, to departure. The service stations were assessed on the quality of catering, cleanliness, staff, food, forecourt, retail, service, toilet facilities and overall site– which included everything from the baby changing, coach parking space or facilities for dogs.
5* scoring deservedly achieved
The VisitEngland assessors were hugely appreciative of Welcome Break’s efforts to provide a service area with top quality brands and comfortable facilities for customers to use. The report on Charnock Richard commented: “The standard of facilities, service, food, drink and merchandise provided by Starbucks, Waitrose and WH Smith was high with 5* scoring deservedly achieved. Other aspects of the service area performed well with Toilets, Staff and Forecourt sections also achieving five star standards. Individual highlights included the cleanliness and overall presentation of the Waitrose shop and the levels of service and knowledge experienced from most of the staff encountered during the visit.”
Commitment to providing first rate service
James Berresford, Chief Executive of VisitEngland said: “The quality of Motorway Services in England has improved dramatically over the last few years. A quality service for visitors makes an enormous difference to people taking a much needed break on their journey – whether their trip is for business or pleasure. There are some true examples of these businesses going above and beyond to meet the needs of customers. What’s also fantastic is that seven individual sites have now achieved the top 5* rating, with all of the services received a rating of 3 stars and up – a sure sign of their commitment to providing this first rate service in the years to come.”
About the Motorway Service Area Quality Scheme
- The quality Scheme was originally commissioned by the Highways Agency in and has been devised to cover service areas which are of key importance to customers.
- VisitEngland was approached by the Highways Agency to set up a quality scheme for Motorway Service Areas in 2008 and the full star rating scheme has now been funded since 2011.
- A total of 107 MSAs across England pay a fee to be part of the Scheme; some of which are twin-sided. For the purpose of the star ratings these twin sided sites have been assessed as two separate entities to ensure that relevant information is available to road users. This leads to there being 107 separate awards made by VisitEngland: Moto (43); Welcome Break (31); Roadchef (23); Extra (7), and Westmorland (3).
- Sites are awarded star ratings based on their performance during an anonymous assessment looking at their quality, key facilities and audit. Sites will be visited twice over 12 months before receiving a star rating. During previous years sites were visited on three occasions.
- The star ratings equate to the following: 5* star ratings is excellent; 4* star rating is very good standards; 3* star rating is good; 2* satisfactory and 1* below satisfactory.
- The scheme is self-funded directly by the MSA operators.