Fleet services

Fleet Services is a motorway service station on the M3 near Basingstoke. It is owned by Welcome Break. It was originally built in a Scandinavian style and in 1992 won "Loo of the Year".^[2] Before 2001, when Winchester services opened, it was the only service station to exist on the M3. In 2006 it was one of the first service stations to carry the new corporate identity for Welcome Break, and along with it came a new Burger King franchise, which then made Fleet Services one of the few motorway service stations to have a Burger King, a KFC and a McDonald's co-exist at the same service station. The McDonald's was part of a 1995 Welcome Break campaign to roll out franchises throughout its chain, but when Welcome Break's parent company was taken over by Granada, the latter's rival franchise of Burger King was instead introduced throughout the chain, but Fleet services (and Woodall), part of the original plan, continued to carry McDonald's despite this.

Fleet services is well known for the 'Fleet cheat' ^[3] in which drivers took a back exit to the northbound side, which is meant for access by authorised vehicles only (as indicated by two no-entry signs with the aforementioned exception information underneath it)^[4], from Pale Lane in order to avoid traffic queues from the motorway. Because of a loophole in legislation, in which the original purpose of the signs cannot be enforced as if it were part of a public highway, thereby only falling under trespassing, people that took the 'Fleet cheat' cannot be prosecuted in the normal way for violating these signs. Recently, bollards have been installed to prevent unauthorised access, but these bollards had often malfunctioned, so ANPR cameras were later installed in July 2010 ^[5], which then signalled the end of the 'Fleet cheat'.

References

External links

• Welcome Break Official Site - Fleet
• Motorway Services Online - Fleet
• Motorway Services Area Trivia - Fleet