And it was. So Peter Keep, 16 years in financial services and two years' managing a hat factory, set up the website
www.5minutesaway.co.uk.
Click on any motorway shown on the site, then select a junction, and you get a list of information on pubs, hotels, restaurants, garages, service stations and places of interest - all within five minutes' drive or three miles of that particular junction - including prices, facilities and directions. The same information is also available via WAP(wap.5minutesaway.co.uk).
The catch to this simple plan came in sourcing the information. Peter drove more than 10,000 miles in three months: three junctions per day, getting off at each one and driving for five minutes or three miles in every direction, visiting the places and obtaining their details.
'My least favourties places didn't get into 5minutesaway,' he says. 'There was a pub in Rotherham that looked lovely from the outside, but inside there was very little furniture and what there was seemed to be bolted to the floor. That didn't get in.'
