Certain cadences appear over a year’s worth of reporting: planning stories are a regular feature, new business ideas being spearheaded by Top 50 Indies are ever-popular, while the fallout from the collapse of Prax made news throughout 2025.
Some stories defy such classifications, however, and the following five articles were altogether unexpected, and captured the unpredictable nature of the forecourt sector – it could only happen here, as they say.
1. Pig trots onto Cheshire forecourt
This was very much a story that did what it said on the tin: a runaway pig was caught on camera traversing a filling-station forecourt in Ellesmere Port, Chesire.
Jay, as he is known, was fortunately dissuaded from entering the kiosk shop, and safely reunited with his owners, who said he had “always been the wayward one” of his drove.
2. Young people are scared of petrol stations, apparently
While Jay’s adventures were captured on CCTV, online car retailer Cazoo relied on a survey to determine that 39% of all drivers, and 62% of Gen Z motorists (those born between 1997 and 2012) suffer from what the company termed ‘refuel anxiety’.
Terrors of the forecourt include, apparently, misfuelling, not being able to park close enough to the pump island, and nozzle hygiene.
We weren’t entirely convinced by the data generated by Cazoo’s study, though, and picked apart its implications in a follow-up comment piece.
3. Pregnant mum gives birth at forecourt
It’s fair to say that fuel retailers are used to expecting the unexpected, but a mum-to-be giving birth at a forecourt is up there with rare events.
The special delivery took place at Pricewatch Group’s Gulf Wivelsfield forecourt in East Sussex, with baby Solomon being born after his mother went into labour while on the way to a nearby hospital.
4. Planners technically ban all new petrol stations
Bureaucracy has become something of a British speciality over the past couple of decades, and no more so is this the case than in our almost bafflingly complex planning regulations.
The web of legislation that surrounds new developments on local and national levels mean all manner of hoops must be jumped through by firms wanting to build a new forecourt, but the various surveys, certificates and drawings firms must submit when applying for planning permission can, in some instances, be rendered moot by the one cardinal sin: petrol stations encourage people to drive, shock horror.
That was the verdict of one Scottish local authority, which refused permission for a new filling station on the grounds that it would “increase dependency on car travel” and not help “reduce emissions”, both big no-nos according to national planning policy.
5. Welcome Break bakes big cake
Everyone loves a birthday party, and Welcome Break pulled out all the stops to mark the 65th anniversary of the UK’s first motorway services.
Newport Pagnell began receiving weary travellers in 1960 and, to mark the occasion, Welcome Break commissioned food artist Michelle Wibowo to bake a life-size cake resembling the best-selling car from the period, the Austin/Morris 1100.
Featuring 50kg of fondant icing, the 2.4m-long cake was made over 16 days, and took 150 hours to bake.
