News

Just weeks after the Nightowl Alconbury truckstop in Cambridgeshire was given notice of closure to shut another Nightowl truckstop is under threat. The company that owns the site of Nightowl truckstop at M54/J1 near Wolverhampton have applied for permission to erect 23,000m2 of warehousing.

This comes as bad news for Allan Evans, MD of ATE  Truck and Trailer Sales, who wanted to buy land next to the truckstop for a truck and trailer sales site. Evans says that his bid for the land was rejected because of the new plans: "Truckstops are renowned for being hard to make profitable, but I believe that by bringing more allied activities to these the sites they could be made to pay."

Nightowl's MD was unavailable for comment on the latest plans, but other staff say that as far as they know there are no plans to close the truckstop. The owner of the land, Kilmartin Properties, has said that it intends to re-develop its Nightowl sites, but it is unclear if this will involve closing the truckstops. The Wolverhampton truckstop was the first  Nightowl's sites in 2003 it became the first UK truckstop to win the police "secured by design" accreditation.