- Gloucester Services, one of three motorway service areas in the UK run by Westmorland Family, which blend sustainability and nature into a place to stop on longer journeys, has been named as the best EV charging hub in Europe.
- The voting-led awards were carried out by Global Convenience Store Focus, with Gloucester Services narrowly missing out on the title of best EV hub in the world – with that award going to Shell Recharge’s 258 bay charging station at Shenzhen International Airport, in China.
- The Gloucester site currently has 24 EV charging points, along with 16 Tesla Supercharger points – but plans to bring even more chargers to the site in the future.
Gloucester Services comes out on top in EV charging hub poll
Gloucester Services only opened in 2014, and the number of EV chargepoints have grown steadily in the years since. The attached facilities make it a particularly pleasant place to pull over and charge, compared to your typical UK motorway service area – which helped contribute to its award as best EV hub in Europe in Global Convenience Store Focus’ annual ‘Best EV hub in the world’ competition.
The sustainability aspect of Gloucester Services goes beyond simply the installation of EV chargers. Rather than the franchises typically associated with a motorway rest stop, the food and shopping facilities rely primarily on producers within the locality of the services. The roof of the main building is covered in a 4,000m2 green roof, whilst a number of ponds and planted trees are encouraging local flora and fauna to thrive.
Westmorland Family’s other motorway service areas, located further north at Tebay services and Cairn Lodge services, are also building up an impressive amount of EV chargers. With a high amount of road traffic passing by these motorway locations, the number of chargers at Gloucester is expected to increase in the future – with Westmorland exploring a new solar panel installation to allow for this charging expansion.
CEO of Westmorland, Nabil Subuh, commented:
“In our industry, Westmorland is a small family-owned independent business, delighted to be recognised for doing business differently. Electric vehicles are the future for our business and we’re investing in that future, creating unique places to stop, and recharge with proper food that reflects the flavour of the locality.”
Notably, Europe accounted for eight of the top ten charging hubs that made the cut. This highlights the impressive level of charging infrastructure that we’re continuing to see installed and developed right across the continent.
