Redefining the Service Station

Working in close collaboration with Westmorland Family, our project helped re-write the script for motorway services, embracing sustainability, landscape and community in a new model with circularity at its heart. Just one example is that in place of franchised brands, the food and produce on offer is sourced from 130 farmers and small businesses within a 30-mile radius.

The project consists of four buildings, two main retail facilities and two fuel stations located between junctions 11a and 12 on the north and southbound sides of the M5 in Gloucestershire.

With organic roof forms echoing the undulating character and vegetation of the Cotswold landscape, the facilities are planned around an arc facing away from the motorway, tucked into the earth to create visually and acoustically sheltered tranquil gardens that allow travellers to rest and recalibrate.

To conserve the landscape and avoid impact on long-distance views, our award-winning architecture is embedded within the site’s undulating topography. By working with natural land levels across the site, we maximised opportunities for screening and visual containment—avoiding exposure to sensitive sightlines. Excavation was minimised, with any moved earth being re-employed to buffer landscapes, including family-friendly picnic areas and an ‘edible garden’, from motorway noise.

Our architecture is low-impact and sustainable, constructed from locally sourced materials using traditional craft-based skills. Internally the timber roof structure is exposed and retaining walls are dressed in local Cotswold dry stone—establishing a familiar vernacular materiality and a sense of earthed retreat from frenetic motorway journeys.

“We were looking to build a new motorway service area on a greenfield site and wanted to create something sleek and contemporary but at the same time crafted, with a strong presence of natural materials. Flanked by an Area of Natural Beauty, it needed to look like it belonged there from the outside, with minimal landscape disruption. Glenn and his team had all the experience to do this and they created a building which our customers love and of which we feel very proud.”
Sarah Dunning, CEO, Westmorland

In 2024 the project celebrated its tenth year and continues to support the neighbouring communities, local suppliers and provide employment to local people.

Consistently named the No.1 service station in the UK, it has become a de facto embassy for Gloucestershire, and even has its own TV show. The partnership between Westmorland and The Gloucester Gateway Trust has delivered extraordinary results—overachieving on all its social, environmental and economic objectives, by returning over £2 million to local communities and supporting over 130 local food and drink producers.