£9M INVESTMENT CREATES TOTALLY NEW FACILITIES AT
ROTHERSTHORPE M1 MOTORWAY SERVICES NEAR NORTHAMPTON

Totally new motorway services on the M1 at Rothersthorpe near Northampton have now opened for business.

These are the first new service facilities to be built on the southern part of the M1 (south of the M6) since the early seventies and represent part of a £9m investment in the service area by RoadChef, one of the UK's leading service area operators.

Completely new amenity buildings have been built on the north and southbound sides of the motorway. Tomorrow sees the opening of the northside building where the services have been closed since earlier in the year. The new building on the southbound side will open in two week's time.

RoadChef acquired additional land to develop the new facilities and to create considerably more parking space for vehicles. The redevelopments are part of a £30m investment programme across the whole of the RoadChef motorway services estate.

Customers using the new northbound services on the M1 will have the benefit of a light and bright air conditioned building with a Costa Coffee shop; Wimpy restaurant from the UK's original fast-food burger chain, as well as RoadChef's new On Route concept restaurants providing a fast, efficient service for high quality food and drinks to go or eat in. The northbound building also has exciting retail outlets.

This redevelopment at Rothersthorpe also sees the creation of a totally new BP Connect forecourt and shop which introduces the Wild Bean Café to the motorway network for the first time. This is one of the most advanced forecourts on the motorway and the first BP Connect forecourt to be developed on the UK network.

"There has not been investment like this in totally new motorway service buildings on this stretch of the M1 for almost 30years. The travelling public today expects a range of quality products to choose from; produced and served in a bright, clean and attractive environment," explains RoadChef's Chief Executive Officer John Greenwood. "We can now offer the public the best facilities and provide the highest quality service that they have come to expect."

The Southbound Services at Northampton continues to trade from its original building while a new amenity building is constructed nearby. This new building will be ready to receive its first customers in late August, after which the original building will be demolished to make more room for additional parking for cars on the site and relocated coach and HGV parking.

The fuel forecourt at Northampton Southbound has also undergone major redevelopment and is also nearing completion as a BP Connect forecourt and shop.

"We realise the developments have caused disruption and we apologise to our customers for any inconvenience during this period. We think they will be very pleasantly surprised when they see what has been developed - and that is because we want to provide them with the best facilities on the motorway network. And when we have completed our development programme across the UK, we will be offering new levels of customer service and exceptionally enhanced value to the travelling public," says John Greenwood.