When I'm heading to the homeland I usually get off at J44 (to head towards the A69). As such I usually do a top-up at Gretna ... good to know that there's an alternative just off that roundabout.
It's great. I used it on my way home after Christmas. Very close to the motorway. A line of 12 Ionity chargers alongside a Starbuck's - you can watch your darling on charge while you have your coffee. Seldom fully occupied, I gather. I just plugged in, tapped my Shell Recharge card, and everything started at once.
The chargers are the other side of the coffee shop from the main car park, so they're never likely to be ICEd up. Accessibility is much better than at Gretna.
When I was having fun baiting The MacMaster, this site came into it. When he was driving north to John O'Groats, he drove in to Southwaite for no readily apparent reason (it hadn't been upgraded then) other than that he "needed a wee". Just the old Gridserves, three 50 Kw plugs, all in use. (His car can do 250 Kw and he had already said he was going for Ionity whenever possible.) He faffed around for about half an hour then left saying he was going to "the next one" - Gretna. "Let's hope there are more chargers there."
Several people pointed out that Gretna isn't "the next one" and that there were 12 of his beloved Ionitys only 12 miles further on at Carlisle. (This was particularly relevant because he seemed to get into trouble at Gretna with low power to the site, though how much of his difficulties are faked I don't know.) He huffed and puffed and said why should he go 12 miles out of his way? One or two people gave him a basic geography lesson - the Carlisle Ionitys are actually closer to the main M6 carriageway than the Gretna ones are to the M74.
More huffing and puffing about how he'd charged at Gretna loads of times and it had always been fine. So much for "let's hope there are more chargers there" and him actually asking for directions to it, also for his repeated assertion that charging is
never fine!
In fact the Carlisle Ionitys are the perfect distance for him to do his first charge if he's heading north from his home, so I'll bet he goes there all the time and his satnav probably directs him there. But I didn't know about them until someone else pointed this out. They're not signposted from the motorway, and the sign actually points to the "Carlisle Truckstop" and says something about no facilities for private cars. So it was a bonus that came out of that argument.
I now realise they're the perfect distance for me travelling north from my friends in Halifax, certainly on winter range. So I'll be visiting again. (I just wish they'd do something about Tebay so I didn't have to faff around in Penrith on the way south.)
