EG On The Move (EGOTM) has opened its 153rd site in the village of Aughton, just south of Ormskirk in Lancashire: with four or five more new builds to go live this year.
Modest in terms of size compared to the Top 50 Indie’s other new builds, Aughton Services on the A59, the main road to Liverpool, takes the Spar and Iceland retail brands in a single storey 4,500sq ft shop.
The site, which benefits from around 20,000 passing daily vehicle movements, caters for motorists, with no specific HGV facilities. It has three pump islands, and two electric vehicle charging bays with an Alpitronic 50kW electric charger.
EGOTM development projects director Alex Kenwright says that the business will finish the rest of the year at a slower pace of growth than the first half of 2025, with around one petrol filling station opening a month. It will then pick up a “relentless pace” again in January with a strong pipeline, says Kenwright.
Next month the business, founded by Zuber Issa, plans to open Cobalt Services in Newcastle, with a Starbucks drive-through. After this it will launch two, maybe three, more new to industry sites this year. And it will complete a knockdown rebuild of a forecourt in Chester, one of 98 petrol filling stations it acquired from Applegreen in February.
EGOTM, which only launched last year, will also bolt on a Starbucks unit at forecourt sites at Portlethen in Aberdeen, and Wherstead, Ipswich.
It seems that only the slow pace of the planning process gets in the way of growth. EGOTM’s latest Aughton Services development, replacing a former petrol station which had been derelict for many years, for example, only took five and a half months to complete.
Meanwhile, the time from making a planning application to winning approval has typically increased from tracking at around 30 weeks to 42 weeks, says Kenwright. “It is an arduous process to get through all the hoops,” he says.
“But we are delighted with Aughton Services. It looks fantastic and it is on a good road and area. It is a great addition to our estate,” he says.
