Is this the end of the Great British forecourt?

Britain’s oldest surviving filling station has pumped its last gallon of fuel. West End Garage, in the remote Welsh Borders, dated back 100 years and was run from the front garden of a 19th-century cottage.

The old-fashioned pumps (operated by an attendant, naturally) were located each side of the cottage gate, with filling carried out over the garden wall to cars at the roadside. The garage near Hay-on-Wye was only the second filling station in Herefordshire when it was first granted a licence to sell petrol in 1922.

For years villagers in Turnastone were able to stock up on groceries sold in the front room of the cottage, which also doubled as an office and store. The basic set-up was a throwback to the early 1900s when owners of the new-fangled motor car bought two-gallon cans of petrol at chemists, hardware shops and even hotels until a standardised form of distribution via a specific site became the norm.

The demise of West End Garage, following the death of its proprietor, mirrors a wider concern for the future of filling stations across the country. With more cars powered by electricity and sales of new petrol and diesels banned from 2030, the traditional forecourt is facing seismic changes.

“The process of refuelling will increasingly be decoupled from the filling station,” said Günther Homolar of petrochemical giant OMV. “The charging process for electric vehicles is frequently done at home, work or places where drivers spend longer periods, such as supermarkets and shopping centres.

“The filling station will primarily be important for travellers and those making longer journeys. It will become a hub for communication and contact – such as a shop stocked with essential items. Fuelling [for vehicles] will be just a side line for an array of different needs.”

Among them could be swapping from a private car to public transport, car-sharing, hiring an e-bike, or simply as a coffee shop for drivers as they wait for their electric car (EV) to charge. Homolar says forecourt shops may even become dry cleaners, or drop-off points for home-delivery vans.

“Even more so than today, the traditional filling station will be transformed into a multipurpose service hub for customers on the move. Many filling stations have already disappeared in the countryside, with operators more likely to build in locations with high footfall.”

And it’s already happening in Britain, as Shell has just opened its first “EV Hub” in Fulham, south-west London. The forecourt, built on the site of a former filling station that was razed to the ground for the development, has nine rapid chargers. There are no longer any petrol or diesel pumps.

Bernie Williamson, spokeswoman for the fuel giant, said: “Fulham is a global pilot, which we are monitoring closely. After a matter of weeks, it is already far busier than we thought, with both local customers who cannot charge from a driveway at home, and those motorists driving a bit further afield.”

Shell plans to grow its network of charge points on forecourts to more than 5,000 by 2025. Even so, Williamson was reluctant to say where or when the next EV Hub would appear – despite Shell announcing profits of $20 billion (£16 billion) this year.

“We are moving at a fast pace but there is a significant cost involved, especially installing the necessary electricity supply,” she said. “There are also issues with planning red tape that have to be addressed at several sites.”

According to the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), the number of filling stations in Britain stood at 38,000 in 1964, then halved between 1992 and 2010 – falling from 18,000 to about 9,000. Since then, the number has levelled out at 8,500.

Phil Monger, PRA technical director, explained: “The huge fall in the 1990s was sparked by the Esso Pricewatch campaign, which promised to match their petrol prices with those at local independent garages, creating a price war.

“I don’t think we can go any lower than the number of stations there are at the moment – these days you can travel miles in rural areas without seeing a filling station at all.”

The PRA has urged the Government to put more effort into promoting hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars, rather than only battery-powered EVs. It claims that using gas tankers to supply a traditional filling station (in the manner of the current tankers delivering petrol and diesel) would be more cost-effective than the price of installing the electrical power supply and sub-stations needed to operate a bank of public charging points.

“Retailers will continue to serve petrol and diesel cars long after the 2030 ban – probably up to 2050,” said Monger. “Inevitably, there will be a decline in the traditional filling station as we know it, but the ones that survive will have good retail facilities, or link up to other retail businesses.”

Where is Britain’s oldest filling station? With the closure of West End Garage in Herefordshire, the hunt is on to find the forecourts that time forgot. If you know of a pre-war fuel station still in operation, let us know at CarsAdvice@telegraph.co.uk

The history of petrol stations in Britain

The early pioneers of motoring probably faced the same issues refuelling their cars as electric vehicle owners today – the fuel was out there somewhere, they just had to find it (although without the benefit of our phone apps and satellite navigation).

Fuel was sold over the counter and, at first, minimal regulations meant the highly volatile liquid didn’t need to be kept in tanks below ground. Hardware stores were a favourite source.

The first pavement pump was installed in 1915 outside Legge & Co in Shrewsbury (1), but it wasn’t the filling station as we know it today.

“It was extremely hit and miss buying fuel – people often relied on local knowledge to find their next tankful,” explained Edmund King, president of the AA.

The threat of a Bolshevik invasion then intervened at the end of the First World War and with anti-Russian sentiment running high, the AA started a campaign to promote British-made benzole fuel, a by-product of burning coal. “We opened Britain’s first filling station at Aldermaston in Berkshire in 1919. There was a single pump operated by a patrolmen in full uniform. The idea took off and the AA set up seven more around the country. By 1923, more than 7,000 pumps were in use,” said King.

Attendants would clean the windscreen, check oil and operate the pumps.

Self-service didn’t take off until much later – one of the earliest opened in 1961 at Southwark Bridge, London.

Later in the 1960s, oil giants such as Shell and BP began buying up independent garages and installing branded forecourts (2).

Patrick Collins works at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu (3), which has a popular display of a typical garage workshop from the 1920s. He helped at his great grandfather’s garage in Westbourne, Sussex.

He said: “During the 1970s there was 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-star petrol on sale, but diesel didn’t arrive until the 1980s. We still offered attended service until 1990 – even after that, some of the older customers would drive up, beep their horn and expect to be served.”