Burtonwood

Burtonwood
Welcome Break
20 more photos in the gallery
Road:	M62 at J8
Address:	Welcome Break Group Ltd Burtonwood Motorway Services Area M62 Great Sankey Warrington Cheshire WA5 3AX
Telephone number:	01925 651656
Signposted from the road?	As Starbucks/KFC
Opened:	1974
Previous operators:	Trusthouse Forte
Grid reference:	SJ576913
Services type:	Single site located at a junction.
Visit Burtonwood/Welcome Break's official website Staff Reunion Site Facebook Page

A shrinking service area at the end of the M62 now with a single distinctive building, it was recently refurbished after one of the two sides were closed.

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Facilities

General: BT WiFi, Welcome Break Gaming, Showers
Restaurants: Starbucks, KFC
Shops: WHSmith (with Costa Express)
Fuel: Shell (with: Costa Express)
Motel: none

Parking Prices

First two hours free for all vehicles, after which cars must pay £10. Further information is not available, please update this if you know.

Prices can be paid in the shop, with instructions in each car park. They are strictly enforced by ParkingEye.

Trivia

The abandoned westbound services

Layout of Burtonwood as of August 2012

The services consist (or consisted) of two small, octagonal pagoda-style buildings which are visible from the motorway. The design was supposed to make the most of the simple landscape, allowing the buildings to be clearly visible from the road. The roof would have been red, as an early way to advertise the services' branding, but planning permission was refused and instead it was copper, soon colouring to its more memorable green. The buildings are said to be haunted as they are built on the site of a disused airfield where an aircraft crashed in the '50s. Perhaps that's why they didn't do very well!

Partial Closure

Burtonwood has slowly, over time, become a rather neglected service area. They were badly hurt when the missing J8 was utilised to serve the upcoming Omega development. As a result of the junction's position it also serves Gemini Retail Park and as a result the westbound services have now been boarded up and abandoned. Westbound traffic can access the eastbound services via the J8 roundabout (entrance) and the old emergency access road (exit back to J8). This was first suggested by Welcome Break in 2000 when the Highways Agency built the new J8, but it didn't happen until about 2008.

Before the closure, Burtonwood had very much become a 'no-go zone' amongst truckers as it was renowned for being dodgy and dangerous. Halving the site meant that some of the facilities had to be lost, including (unusually for a Welcome Break), the lack of a Burger King and a Coffee Primo. The old westbound side was demolished in 2009 by Marshall and proposed for development including Travelodge, Starbucks and a Harvester pub/restaurant, but the majority of the former compound is still unused, awaiting offices.

The former westbound emergency access road can still be made out.

The eastbound site has been refurbished and it has joined up as a coach interchange.

Survey Results

In May 2012 and August 2011, Visit England rated the services as 2 stars, making it one of the worst-performing.

In 2008 the services won a five star loo award.

Alternatives