The road to growth: Why motorway services are key to EV revolution

Motorway services will be central to the EV transition, but urgent action is needed to unlock grid capacity, writes Tim Gittins

The UK has now passed a significant milestone with more than 2m electric vehicles on the road. It is a powerful signal of the pace at which transport is changing, and of the scale of the challenge now facing policymakers and industry alike in ensuring the infrastructure exists to support that transition at pace in practice, not just in principle.

Since the opening of Watford Gap in 1959, the UK’s first motorway service area (MSA), motorway services have continually adapted to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly mobile nation, supporting long-distance travel, improving road safety and ensuring the drivers delivering goods we all rely on have places to stop and rest, quietly underpinning the UK’s logistics network. Today, as the government prioritises economic growth, accelerates housebuilding and pushes forward with transport decarbonisation, the role of motorway services is evolving once again, becoming far more central to the delivery of those ambitions.

At Roadchef, we operate sites that serve millions of motorists each year, but their significance extends well beyond convenience. Motorway service areas are a form of critical national infrastructure – as well as providing drivers with safe places to rest, they support drivers to sustain the movement of goods, enable labour mobility and contribute to economic activity across the country.  

Motorway services are vital national infrastructure

As pressures on the transport network intensify, that function is only becoming more important and in partnership with government and industry, we now need to plan properly for the long term. With the 75-year lease extensions recently secured in partnership with The Department for Transport and National Highways across five of our sites, including Watford Gap, we are now able to commit tens of millions of pounds to upgrading facilities, expanding capacity and future-proofing our network for the next generation of road users and vehicle requirements. 

This investment delivers not only better infrastructure, but wider economic benefits in the form of jobs, productivity and regional development, and there are opportunities to unlock even more growth. New motorway service developments in underserved areas have the potential to function as catalysts for regional growth, improving connectivity while creating local employment and attracting additional investment.

To meet housebuilding ambitions and support numerous infrastructure projects across the country, the expansion of HGV facilities is fundamental to the viability of the UK’s construction pipeline and to the government’s levelling up ambitions. Delivering new homes at scale depends on the efficient movement of materials and labour across the country, yet the infrastructure supporting those supply chains is under increasing strain. With the right investment and planning support, motorway services areas can play a decisive role in ensuring that networks operate smoothly, helping turn housing targets into homes built.

EV revolution will stall without grid reform

Currently, grid availability is the biggest barrier to delivering high-powered EV charging infrastructure, particularly in rural and remote areas. The National Audit Office has found that only 10 per cent of motorway service areas currently have the grid capacity needed to meet forecast EV charging demand by 2035. If the UK is serious about equal EV access and the decarbonisation of freight, policy must address the grid constraints holding back infrastructure at vital points on the strategic road network.

Motorway service areas will be central to this transition. Reliable en-route charging can help reduce one of the major barriers to EV adoption, support cleaner freight and passenger journeys, and ensure the benefits of electrification are available beyond urban centres. 

En-route charging will account for a substantial portion of all EV charging by 2050, making it a core part of the national network. Roadchef is investing to meet this need, with plans to roll out 1,000 EV charging bays across its sites by 2030. But delivering a comprehensive network for motorists, commercial fleets and electric HGVs will require urgent action to unlock grid capacity where it is needed most.

What is emerging, increasingly clearly, is a model for effective collaboration between the public and private sectors on infrastructure. When organisations like National Highways, local planning authorities and private operators like Roadchef can align on the most important investment priorities, real progress can be made, giving businesses the confidence to invest for the long term, while also delivering improvements that benefit the wider public.

That investment is also transforming the experience for the millions of people who rely on motorway services each year. By expanding partnerships with leading UK retail and hospitality brands, improving facilities and responding to evolving consumer expectations, service areas should no longer be viewed as purely functional stops, they have become environments that prioritise experience, convenience and choice.

Today, we stand at the intersection of some of the UK’s most pressing economic priorities: growth, connectivity, decarbonisation and delivery. With the right policy framework and a continued commitment to long-term investment, motorway service areas can move from being a supporting feature of the transport network to a driving force behind a cleaner, more resilient and more connected British economy.

Tim Gittins is the CEO of Roadchef