Brutalist and dingy: the region’s worst services?
A REPORT HAS SLAMMED THIS DILAPIDATED SERVICE STATION
Reporter IT’S been labelled the worst in the North East and the sixth worst in the country – but is Washington Services Northbound really that bad?
Well, there was only one way to find out, which meant a trip to it on the A1 just outside Newcastle.
It is identifiable by the long footbridge which straddles the motorway connecting it to Washington Services Southbound.
However, it was the northbound side which the report by Transport Focus took exception to, putting it at 107 out of 112 in the country.
“Filthy. No caravan parking and generally tatty, dismal and grubby. Wouldn’t use this again even if I was desperate,” said one user.
I’ve done a lot of travelling and some services are vast complexes with all manner of shops and stores.
Washington, run by Moto, is compact. On the Northbound side is a Costa Coffee, a Burger King and WH Smith situated cheek by jowl. Over the bridge to the southside is the omnipresent Greggs.
While the car and coach park is small, ironically when I turned up a vehicle arrived pulling a caravan which somewhat contradicted one criticism.
An architect might describe the building as brutalist in appearance, the layman might say dingy, its entrance looking more like a garage.
However, inside it was clean, the staff friendly, the food looked OK and my mocha coffee was pleasant enough.
The main issue appears to be its superficial appearance and the footbridge. Out of interest I had a look to explore the southside too and was immediately struck at how dilapidated it looked.
There was mould and what looked like fungus on the window, the floors appeared filthy and it had such a post-apocalyptic look you might have expected zombies to suddenly emerge.
This, hopefully, will be rectified starting at the end of this month according to a notice pinned to the door which detailed two weeks of refurbishment work on the footbridge.
One of the worst in the country? That would take an extensive amount of research but its down-at-heel appearance, lack of size and bunker look did it no favours.
Then there was the price of fuel. It was a gobsmacking 132.9p a litre for regular unleaded, 134.9p for diesel.
According to the Petrol Price website which monitors prices, the average is 117.8 and 120.2p respectively.
This alone is as good a reason as any not to stop there.