Essar UK has opened its new flagship forecourt and Morrisons store at Lea Gate, on Blackpool Road, Preston.
The new forecourt has an eight-bay fuelling area for cars and vans at the front and a second four-bay area for heavy goods vehicles (HGV) at the back.
The fuel pumps will include super grades of fuel including high octane Essar 99 as well as Adblue. Two electric vehicle (EV) charging bays are also available on site.
There are also car wash facilities with a four-bay valeting centre using Turtle wax pro cleaning solutions, complete with air blasters to leave cars with a streak-free finish, as well as air fragrance and vacuum.
The site’s 3,000sq ft Morrisons store will provide a daily kitchen offering fresh sandwiches and bakery goods made on site as well as fresh hot and cold food to go.
The store includes a refrigeration system that recovers 97% of heat lost from fridges to take care of the sites heating needs. There is a separate seating area and Costa Coffee Express.
To mark the opening day on Friday June 23 there were prizes and giveaways as well as low-priced fuel. An Essar-branded racing car – Justin Sherwood’s 510bhp Porsche 911 GT3 Cup race car, which is currently taking part in the Porsche Carrera Cup – was also at the site all day.
Chief marketing officer Carlos Rojas said: “We are delighted to be opening our new flagship forecourt for customers at Lea Gate. Our whole approach is about driving customer convenience and we have made visiting this site an easy and value-added experience by creating numerous fuelling bays, a large convenience store, a Costa Express, having friendly staff and much more on offer.”
Each day 35,000 vehicles are expected to pass the site with the figure expecting to double once the new Western Distributor Road opens later this month.
