Beaconsfield was found to be the only motorway service station in the country to have a food outlet with a hygiene rating of zero.

A Freedom of Information request by the Press Association revealed that 10 motorway service stations had eateries that failed to achieve ‘good’ ratings, including Beaconsfield Services.

The report found that services in the south-east of England are three times more likely than the rest of Britain to have at least one food business failing to achieve a score of four out of five.

The Carvery Express kiosk at the M40 junction 2 services on Windsor Road was rated zero by FSA inspectors on January 21 this year, warning that urgent improvement was needed.

Inspectors also said “major improvement” was necessary at El Mexicana, giving it a score of 1 on October 8 last year.

Andrew Long, CEO of Extra MSA Group, said the zero rating for the Carvery Express is “now historic and not in relation to Beaconsfield Services as a whole” and that Extra takes it “very seriously”.

He said: “Although this issue should never have occurred in this kiosk, it was as a result of the Carvery Express business changing ownership and the new tenant owner initially not quickly enough taking the required action to address this.

“This has now been done some significant time ago and a re-inspection has been requested by the tenant, so that the correct up to date rating can be issued by the Environmental Health Officer.

He added: “The tenant anticipates that this will now be a four or five star rating, but it can take some three months or so for the re-inspection to take place and the correct up to date rating to be formally issued.”

He said that while individual businesses are responsible for their own kiosk, Extra does “impose stringent operating requirements” on each tenant.