This is madness. I live in Ashford, in Kent, which has no LPG stations that I can find.The nearest station to me is about 12 miles down the motorway at Junction 11 of the M20. The problem with this station is that, either they don't really want to sell LPG or it's very poorly ran.

It's a Shell station at the services, which was shut over the winter. It re-opened in March and since then there has been no LPG more often than not. Out of the last 4 times I've been there, twice the pump was broken and at the weekend they had ran out and didn't know when the next delivery would be.

There is a BP further down the M20, about 25 miles away from Ashford but this is shut for 6 weeks for a refurb.
This leave no LPG in the whole of Kent, south of Maidstone. Thats about 45 miles of M20 all the way to Dover.

I have used the usual LPG locator websites and there are a couple of supposed stations in my town. Unfortunatley, they only have a tank for their own use and don't sell to the public.

I know a lot of the forecourts are franchises but surely there would be enough demand for one of them in Ashford to fit 1 pump? It seems crazy that a town with over 250,000 residents only has 1 unrelaible source of LPG within 25 miles in each direction.

Looks like I might have to swtich to plan B. I have a mate with a tile firm who used to fire his kilns with LPG and had his cars converted. It's a few miles out, but at least I could fill up.

I don't suppose there's anyone with any local knowledge of a station which I'm unaware of in Mid Kent?
20mpg is quite painful on petrol!

Looking on Richard's site www.filllpg.co.uk, you seem to have quite a few stations in your area. Some of the prices haven't been updated for a while so you can go and check them out and update the prices while you are at it!

_________________
'96 Saab 900XS, AEB Leo, sold
'93 Range Rover 4.2 LSE, Lovato LovEco, sold
'98 Ex-Police Range Rover 4.0, Singlepoint AEB Leo, my daily motor
'97 Range Rover 4.0SE, eGas multipoint, a project.....

Proud to be a member of the YCHJCYA2PDTHFH club.

Nope. Just looked at that and still the only 2 stations south of Maidstone are Hythe and Dover.

Hythe is the one which 3 times out of 4 had no LPG and Dover (25 miles away) is shut for 6 weeks.
Considering Ashford is on the main motorway to the channel tunnel and cross channel, it does seem odd that apart from the useless Hythe services, we have no LPG within 20 miles in any direction.

I have the phone number of the Hythe Channel Gateway services station, 12 miles down the M20 now and will be pestering them each day now until they have a delivery!

I always use the A2/M2 when going to Dover but only very rarely fill up there. It's cheaper at the big Total station in Calais so I fill up there instead. Then again, the only time I go to Dover is when I'm on my way to France.......

_________________
'96 Saab 900XS, AEB Leo, sold
'93 Range Rover 4.2 LSE, Lovato LovEco, sold
'98 Ex-Police Range Rover 4.0, Singlepoint AEB Leo, my daily motor
'97 Range Rover 4.0SE, eGas multipoint, a project.....

Proud to be a member of the YCHJCYA2PDTHFH club.

Since they took over the rontec Total branded forecourts shell seem to have an issue getting any fuel to the stations before they run out. I'd expect it to improve but the problem seems to be they haven't actually got either enough tankers or drivers to get the deliveries out in time. Round near me they have taken over at least 5 garages I know of and now when i've been to any of them alot of them have run out of one or the other of the standard fuels (petrol or diesel) or even both in a few cases.

The odd thing i've found is for some reason the motorway services near me (toddington on the m1) have actually been cheaper (only for lpg!) of late than the local stations and since a fair amount of my time takes me past them i tend to fill up there. It depends on where you are and where you go.

I'll have a look in the map book and see which others are missing. I've added a few in Kent but generally found there aren't many in that area for some reason.

Try the following
United taxis - Woodacre, Mersham, Ashford, TN26 7JB Tel 01233 666999 http://www.unitedtaxis.co.uk/lpg.htm shown at 77.5 litre on their website. More expensive than elsewhere but if they are the only one locally thats what tends to happen.

Texaco Star Harbledown - Upper Harbledown, Canterbury, CT2 9AZ 01227 817920

GH - Thanet way A299 e/b Bypass, Faversham, ME13 9EL 01227 771147

Flogas Ridham Dock Rd, Sittingbourne, ME9 8SR


You also have an installer locally - Energyshift http://www.energyshift.co.uk/Home.html They may be able to advise you if you drop them an email. It doesn't appear that they provide any as far as i can tell.

If any of those do work for you please either let us know here or better still add them to filllpg.co.uk if you could please.

Also another thing to note - you can't take lpg vehicles on the tunnel hence that isn't a demand for them, although ferries seem to be fine.

Thanks for that.
The United Taxi's one could be usefull as it's only a few miles from Ashford.

Shell Channel Gateway had ran out at the weekend so I rang them on Monday. They were expecting a delivery on Tuesday.
I rang them today to check they had fuel and they have ran out again!

They reckon they had a delivery from Autogas but he only put 30% in the tank. If that's the case then a full tank wouldn't last a week there.

I'll add them to filllpg if I'm down that way and can confirm they actually still do LPG. I get all over the place with work so tend to end up filling up in pretty much any part of the uk. And with a tank thats only got 240 miles range at best it tends to be quite often. If you find they do work in the meantime either add them or post back here. The others may come in useful if you have to go slightly further afield.

This may also be worth a try - it looks like your area.

http://www.lpgautoconversions.co.uk/contact/index.php

Quote from their faq section

"Are there any disadvantages to Autogas?

There are a couple.

a ) The first one is the relatively small number of garages ( now up to over 1200) selling LPG Autogas. This is improving at an amazing rate. Most BP motorway services now have LPG pumps, and an increasing number of Sainsbury stores also have pumps. More garages are opening daily.

We can supply you with a comprehensive list or you can visit Go-Autogas to locate your nearest LPG refulling station. We also sell gas at a reduced rate to our conversion customers."

Also from their website.
Telephone: (01233) 758 014
Write To:

LPG Auto Conversions UK
Island Works
Island Cottage
Stone in Oxney
Kent
TN30 7JL

I found them on Thursday and filled up at 75.9 ppl. It's a bit hard to find as the taxi depot isn't visible from the road, it's down the side of a large house. There is a large sign for the house telling you it's "Woodacre" but nothing to mention the taxi firm.

It's open 7 days, 7AM to 11PM and is CASH ONLY. You go to the taxi offcie, fill in the date, name and reg in a book then take a tag which is sealed inside a plastic box to the pump. When you've finished you go back to the office and fill in the cost and litres in the book and pay in cash.

They were very friendly and being the first time I'd been there, one of them came out to show me how ot use the pump. You have to enter your reg no in the pump and swipe the tag to activate it.

I've added it to filllpg.co.uk with as much info as possible.

Thanks for the tip. It was 2p cheaper than on the website when I fiilled up, but to be honest, I'd rather fill up locally for 2p a litre more tan have to do a 30 mile round trip!

Thanks for the tip.

I complained to Shell about the constant lack of LPG at their Junction 11 M20 services. Their response was that a technical issue at Portsmouth had resulted in short supply of LPG and they are having to prioritise domestic heating for supply rather than filling stations. Maybe "technical issue" translates as it's been colder than expected so more LPG has been used for domestic heating than Shell had planned?

Either way, even if they have LPG, the pump is still out of action half the time. Including the last 2 attempts, where I've phoned them up first to check the pump is working, that makes 3 successfull fill ups in 9 attempts.

I think I'll stick with my local supplier.

Technical issue usually seems to mean something rather simple and basic and embarrassing to admit to has happened so we don't want to say what the problem actually is. So yes your probably right. Good to know it helps cheers for adding it.

And few things irritate me more than doing a trip solely to fill up to discover the place i goto is not working so I know where your coming from there.

Have added the texaco garage as confirmed it is still there when i was driving past yesterday

This is all too, too familiar! I have a similar problem here in the West Country. Where I'm situated the nearest station is 9 miles away (Frome, in somerset). There are no others- nearest to that is 15 miles. They have constant problems there with short supply and the single pump being out of order.

I dropped in there again today and (surprise surprise) it's out of order again. I went and had a chat with them and it appears that they are reliant on Calor to come out and fix the problem- which they do eventually, then another appears!

The feeling I went away with was that Calor really don't give a stuff about some semi-rural garage and would rather deal with someone who made them more money (and didn't keep giving problems- despite its only THEIR engineers that are allowed to sort things out).

I've decided that a Countrywide account is the only way forward for me - ironically I've discovered there is an automatic pump 5 miles down the road that I never knew about!

You can see why most people give LPG a wide berth. Not only the installation costs, but when they are expected to have to put up with all this malarky...

- Martin

Try finding it in NI if you think thats bad!

have a check out of this station if your still about - I found it when looking for something else and it may not be right, so don't make a special trip for it (if I end up passing that way ill check it out and add it on filllpg)

http://www.mylpg.eu/stations/united-kin ... 4DADDFD7FE

BP Express Shopping Limited
18 Beaver Road
Ashford
TN23 7RP
United Kingdom