Frankley

Frankley
Moto
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Road:	M5 between J3 and J4
Address:	Moto Frankley Motorway Services Illey Lane Birmingham Worcestershire B32 4AR
Telephone number:	0121 5503131
Signposted from the road?	As Costa/Burger King (northbound) Burger King/Costa/M&S (southbound)
Opened:	1966
Previous operators:	Granada
Previous names:	Birmingham South
Grid reference:	SO988812
Services type:	Two sites located between junctions, with no public connection between them.
Visit Frankley Northbound/Moto's official website Visit Frankley Southbound/Moto's official website Facebook Page

The northernmost services on the M5, Frankley is very old but it has been refurbished several times.

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Facilities

General: Showers, Wi-Fi
Restaurants: Eat & Drink Co., Burger King, Costa Coffee (northbound only)
Shops: WH Smith, Marks and Spencer Simply Food (southbound only)
Fuel: Esso with pumps for Unleaded, Ultimate Unleaded, Diesel and Ultimate Diesel
Motel: Travelodge^{[book rooms]} (southbound only)

Parking Prices

First two hours free for all vehicles, after which cars must pay £8 and HGVs £17, or £19 to include a £7.50 food voucher.

Prices can be paid through the phone, with instructions in each car park. They are strictly enforced by CP Plus.

Trivia

It seems there will never be an end to the jokes about Frankley's name, especially as it's close to Rubery. It was the first service area of its type when it opened in 1966.

The southbound services have a very odd design, with a restaurant and toilets on the second floor. It's one of very few services to have a full second story, and it backs out over the exit road. This design used to be replicated on the northbound side, but that was demolished and moved away from the road as part of the M5 widening scheme in the 1980s. There used to be a bridge connecting the two services, which would have joined the southbound building where the stairway currently is.

Survey Results

In late 2006 Frankley starred on the BBC's 'The Money Programme', which described it as 'terrible'. At 2pm it had ran out of food.

In 2006 Frankley was also noted for having the best toilets at any UK motorway service area!

Also in 2006, the services were rated 3/5 by Holiday Which?

The services were inspected by the AA on the 4th and 5th of April 2004. These are their results:

The self-service restaurant, range of goods in the shop and staff were all good, but the building was old, dirty, had few external facilities and had a long wait for a poor range of unappetising meals.

Alternatives

Comments and Reviews

Showing the most recent responses only: for the full thread and the ability to edit your own posts, you need to view the topic in the forums.
Author: Message: Anonymous Visited on Sunday 22nd August 2010 at 9.02am Possibly the worst breakfast we have ever had the displeasure of eating. Assistant microwaved the fried eggs!. Fried bread was overloaed with oil and very hard, yet soggy at the same time. Beans and tomatoes had seen better days, both seemed far from fresh. Sausages appeared to have been deep fried and reheated. Bacon the only edible item. Then to add insult to injury, as we left, my husband ran for the toilets and promptly vomited up the complete breakfast. Shameful and to be avoided. Staff courteous and helpful. Posted: 23 Aug 2010, 15:59 Anonymous I work at moto frankley. there is a linking bridge to connect both sides, and yes m&s is only available on southbound. the Ritazza on north has now been replaced by a new costa edc Cafe and the seating has been recently upgraded together with LCD televisions for the world cup. it appears old and shabby from the outside but is quite nice inside and is complimented by the kind staff. Posted: 31 May 2010, 01:17 Anonymous Visited the site 10/5/2010, yes the building unempresive, but does that realy matter? staff very good,site clean, had a brunch,chips cooked to order, was a good size meal, was very impressed Posted: 14 May 2010, 17:18 jamess There was a linking bridge between north and southbound services. The southbound services on the edge of the motorway is the original 1960s building, two floors high to accommodate the bridge. The M5 was widened from 2 lanes to 3 lanes in the early 1980s and the northbound services were demolished to accommodate road widening. The northbound services are now located much further from the edge of the motorway than traditional 1960s buildings, with car parking between the building and the motorway, rather than before reaching the services building Posted: 24 Mar 2010, 22:52 Alan It is strange that there is no lnking bridge provided as there is only a lodge on one side too! Posted: 20 Aug 2009, 18:57 Johnny I blame Moto, who don't say it's southbound only at all. I've corrected the page on this site. Posted: 20 Aug 2009, 17:28 Andy Visted northbound services hoping to call at M&S to buy picnic food for a family day out at Black Country Museum, only to find that the M&S is on the Southbound services only! This site does not make this clear. Beware. Posted: 20 Aug 2009, 17:21 Alan Visited the Northbound services last week at about 10pm. It looks really small from the outside but actually has lots of room when you are in it. Clean, well equipped and easy to navigate but feels a bit souless! Posted: 11 Aug 2009, 19:57 Perplexed We stopped at Frankley South/west/bound on Saturday 1stAug 09 .We selected the cleanest tray we could find from the pile.We collected our food/drinks and looked for a table,plenty available but not one clean one.The staff had cleared the cups/trays ect,but nobody had wiped the tables over there was spilt coffee/tea/stains on all. The manager did apologise The signs on the motorways say,TAKE A BREAK Don't take it at Frnkley south bound its not clean! Posted: 03 Aug 2009, 11:00 Johnny Stopped at the southbound services on a Sunday afternoon at the start of Summer. From the outside it looks like an absolute pig sty. However, I'm not reviewing the architect, I'm reviewing the services, and inside there was absolutely nothing wrong. It was clean and not too busy.In fact, whilst I was there, a woman was making sure every sign had been wiped clean. If you have dogs, the only grass space available is up by the motel, in a separate parking area. Also, the entrance to the car park is shockingly tight: if you want to get to the back eight rows (out of 14), your only option is to do a 180 degree turn on the spot (I'm not kidding!). Nice of Moto to provide two wide parent and child spaces too, I'm sure that really helps. Posted: 26 Jul 2009, 23:07
Showing the most recent responses only: for the full thread and the ability to edit your own posts, you need to view the topic in the forums.

Main Page | Photo Gallery | Location, Map and Directions

With thanks to the users 'Ziathon' and 'jamess' for the information used on this page.

AA survey results from the Automobile Association, you can view the full report and what they were looking for in this PDF document.