Legal challenge and retail changes cause long delays for motorway service areas

Almost €500,000 has been spent on security and lighting at three unopened motorway service sites.

TII, formerly the National Roads Authority, has incurred the costs for the sites at Gorey, Co Wexford, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, and Moate, Co Westmeath.

While motorway services on a range of routes are said to be in development, the three projects have stalled due to a combination of changes in the retail fuel business, and a legal challenge.

The largest portion of costs are incurred at Gorey where the unopened facility has had round-the-clock security and nighttime lighting since 2015. In addition to the ongoing security costs, the roads authority spent an estimated €10 million on developing the site and services building.

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Gorey was initially expected to open in 2014 but when TII identified fuel retailer Topaz as its preferred bidder for the concession in May 2015, it was challenged in the courts by the SuperStop 2 Consortium, involving Applegreen and Tedcastles Oil Products. The facility has remained closed since completion in 2015.

At Kilcullen and Moate the costs are less because the State road builder did not construct a building on either site, but it developed off ramps and an overbridge from which traffic must be securely blocked.

While the dispute over the Gorey site was settled by May of this year, no contract betweenTII and Topaz has yet been signed, TII has confirmed.

Sources indicated “much has changed” in the fuel retail world since 2015 including the sale of Topaz to Canadian company Couche-Tard, which is to rebrand Topaz as Circle K.

Industry sources said Topaz’s new owners injected €25 million into its Irish holding company already this year, including provision for the €6 million rebrand.

It is understood a 25-year lease on the three sites will cost the new owners €25 million plus the costs of building the facilities at Kilcullen and Moate – bringing total investment into the contract to at least €40 million.

Topaz declined to make any comment on the latest delays in signing a deal on the three stations with TII, while TII said it was “working with the preferred bidder Topaz, toward financial close”.

TII, which has not opened a motorway service area since 2010, is also facing delays with service areas on the M3 and M6. While 2019 has been given as a completion date for these, TII notes they are still subject to the planning process, funding and construction.

A service area on the M18 in development since 2015, cites 2020 as the “earliest construction completion” date. It notes these service areas are also subject to funding and planning permission.

Another tranche of TII’s motorway services programme includes service areas on the N28 and N69 which are yet to secure planning and finance.

In the years since TII’s last opening in 2010 many of the opportunities for motorway services have been taken up by the private sector opening “offline” services – not adjacent the motorway, but nearby. An example is Applegreen’s opening of a €7 million service area at Ashford in Co Wicklow. Another is the Barack Obama Plaza in Moneygall, Co Tipperary.

Transport Infrastructure Ireland acknowledged the costs involved in the three services at Gorey, Kilcullen and Moate. It said pending a deal with an operator “the costs remain an ongoing expense” .

In a statement, the utility said it was “working towards delivery” of its motorway services policy. It said, “there have been delays in the overall roll-out due to funding constraints during the economic downturn, along with legal actions taken” and it also cited a planning refusal for the M6 services west of Athenry which are about three kilometres from the M17/M18.

TII said it “recognises the difficulty these delays are causing”.

However, the road builder said it “should be recognised that the roll-out of the online service areas by the TII, which are owned by the taxpayer, stimulated the private sector to advance their plans [to] provide the required services just off of the motorway network throughout the country.”

Last month the authority opened the 101km “Atlantic Corridor” motorway route from Tuam, Co Galway to near Shannon, Co Clare without providing services or a toilet stop.