Folkestone

Folkestone
Stop 24
3 more photos in the gallery
Road:	M20 at J11 (also accessible to traffic on the A20 and the B2068)
Address:	Stop 24 Services Stanford Intersection Hythe Kent CT21 4BL
Telephone number:	01303 760273/4
Signposted from the road?	Yes
Opened:	2008
Grid reference:	TR132372
Services type:	Single site located at a junction.
Stop 24's official website YouTube Video Facebook Page

Stop 24 is located just minutes from the Eurotunnel and the Port of Dover. It is the UK's largest service station and until recently it was the newest. It also doubles up as a 'Port Early Arrival Facility', meaning that anyone early for their ship or a train can stop by and rest before heading onwards.

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Facilities

General: Local Information, Ferry Timetables, Wi-Fi, Quicksilver, Xchange (Bureau de Change)^[website], Showers, Coach Interchange, Picnic Area
Restaurants: KFC, Coffee Stop, Just Spuds, Wimpy, Subway
Shops: WHSmith, Haldanes Xpress
Fuel: Shell (with: Deli2go Costa Express Select Autogas LPG)
Motel: none

Parking Prices

First two hours free for all vehicles. After this, cars must pay £5 per 24 hour period or £3 for up to 4 hours. Tickets can be bought through a pay-by-phone system with instructions in the car park.

Parking is available for caravans and motorhomes in designated areas. The first two hours are free and overnight parking from 1800 - 0930 costs £20 or 30 Euros. A combined parking and £10 food voucher is also available fro £28 or 35 Euros.

Further information is not available, please update this if you know.

Trivia

Sitting against the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Folkestone officially opened on the 9th January 2008 but the services themselves actually opened a few days earlier (before any of the signs were put up), giving them the nickname 'the secret services'. Many of units didn't open until a few days later, and the hotel, a Days Inn, wasn't scheduled to open until Autumn 2008. It now looks like it isn't going to be built at all.

It's located at the first exit after the Channel Tunnel, perhaps making lorry drivers from France navigate local traffic on their way to the toilet wasn't the smartest of ideas. The original plans were for the services to be open by November 2007 and the hotel in Spring, but these have long since been forgotten.

Until it opened, Maidstone was the only service area on the 50-mile M20 motorway. Folkestone strongly rivals this and Welcome Break's facilities at the nearby Eurotunnel.

Having been removed from just about every service station, Wimpy recently made a surprising return to the services.

Folkestone doesn't actually have a name. Stop 24, the operator, call it Stop 24 and Extra, who owned the petrol station and leased it out to Shell, call it Folkestone. As if this wasn't enough, the locals call it Westenhanger and the Highways Agency call it Saltwood! The signs on the road don't refer to it by name, simply 'services and port early arrivals'.

The services were first given planning permission in 1994 and they have 300 car parking spaces and 24 for lorries. Some of the units are yet to be let - see Stop 24's website for more information.

A HMV store was here for a short period described as an "interesting, low-risk opportunity", but it has since closed. As well as HMV other former tennants, in the so far short history of Stop24 include Starbucks, Burger King, Julian Graves, Muffin Break and EAT.

Several plans for these services were originally submitted in the early 1990s, but the Department for Transport rejected them all as it said they weren't suitable. In 2010 Henry Boot Developments tried to sue several companies for misrepresenting the number of visitors, facilities and signs on the motorway these services would get. The case was dismissed.

Survey Results

In 2010 the services won a five star loo award.

Alternatives

With thanks to Trish Thorpe and Jonathan Elton for the information used on this page.