The retail offer at Granada motorway service areas is being revamped as part of a general overhaul of the sites. Compass Group, which took over the motorway service areas from Granada earlier this year, is rebranding them as Moto, and as part of the change is upgrading its Stopgap stores. Tim Moss, md of Moto Hospitality, said: "We will launch an improved Stopgap with a new fascia, layout, planograms and range." The new look will be trialled at Toddington southbound on the M1, before being rolled out to the group's 30 service area sites. The new look will also be rolled out to other Stopgap stores. There are 116 such stores in the UK, mainly at campuses, hospitals and other workplaces. There is likely to be some "cross fertilisation" between stopgap and Whistlestop, the c-store chain purchased by Compass in March, but Moss emphasised they had different offerings. He explained: "Stopgap is primarily CTN while Whistlestop is more food oriented. "We see opportunities for both of them in a number of locations." Moss said Moto would be pressing ahead with its campaign for a relaxation of restrictions on the amount of retail space allowed at motorway service areas. The group is currently in talks with other service area operators, the Office of Fair Trading and the Highways Agency, and he said progress was being made. He would like to see convenience formats such as Tesco Express at motorway sites, to help generate more revenue to defray the costs of running service areas, and said there had been discussions with a number of supermarket groups. "We are not looking to build big supermarkets. We want to cater for commuters looking to pick up their evening meal and top up shopping,"he said. Moss dismissed concerns that it could cause more traffic adding: "This will reduce the number of journeys rather than increase them." He admitted his retail prices were high, but added: "Anything that improves our return on capital will allow us to improve the value to customers." {{NEWS }}