As a tax paying home owner of Fleet I am concerned about the number of Hand Car wash set ups that are appearing in and round our town. Most of these are dispensing Trade Effulant into our water systems, have no Public liabilty insurance or regard for the enviroment. They break all the Enviroment agencies guidelines PPG13.
The CWA appeared on BBC news last week, appealing to the government to clamp down on this kind of operations.

What are our local council doing about it?

By FFFJ2010 at 14:02 on 05/10/10

Re-post

Have you written to the local council about this yet?

By RaAnMa at 15:59 on 05/10/10
Report
Shame on you! How about taking them some hot scones,coffee and enviromental friendly cleaner.
Give then a pat on the back, at least they are off there buts and doing something,good on them.

By wodger1 at 05:57 on 14/10/10
Report
Tend to agree with wodger1 on this. Sometimes we just get too bogged down in red tape and it becomes self defeating..... I bet all the successful entrepreneurs were the ones who started something just because they could, rather than worry about whether it was the "right" thing to do. As long as they are not threatening anyone or causing a nuisance, good for them I say!

By olgadapolga at 14:19 on 14/10/10
Report
If it's an environmental health issue, the people you need to contact are here:http://tinyurl.com/3aclh28

I agree that it's good that people are out there finding work, though how many people actually WANT to be car washing for a living is another issue.

By Fact0tem at 23:02 on 14/10/10
Report
I'm not entirely convinced that the council would be able to do anything about it. As olgadapolga said, if they're not causing bother then why shouldn't they be washing cars? Unless there are more pressing environmental concerns?

By RaAnMa at 11:27 on 15/10/10
Report
The environmental issue isn’t one that greatly concerns me, neither the public liability cover, or lack of it as the case may be.

What amazes me is that in Fleet, and to be fair in a lot of places, car washing seems to be one of the only growth industries! All credit to these guys for getting out there and earning a few quid, but are people really so lazy that they will pay someone to do a job they can easily do themselves for less money?

May be car washing will clean up (sorry couldn’t resist it!) in double dip recession Britain ….

By MIKENEWS at 10:03 on 21/10/10
Report
That pun was cringeworthy, haha.

The point about it being cheaper to wash it yourself...this is true but just to play devil's advocate I would presume that some people (not all) will be paying just because they trust that the person they hire will do a better job?

By RaAnMa at 10:22 on 21/10/10
Report
Yes RaAnMa I have written to the council.... enviromental agency etc and yes they can and are doing something about it or so they tell me...only time will tell.

Firstly one thing ..I dont have an issue with people thinking of a gap in the market and marking some money.( been there done that myself) The guys working in the one near me work hard probabley for only a few pounds. They are polite enough etc.

My concern is they are allowed to set up without any guidence,planning or consultation of people living close by.
You and me cant do that on our own property!

Living next door to one, I have issues with that. Without going into to much detail I have had to complain about urinating, noise, water spray across my garden to the point where we cant sit outside, waste water flooding my garden ...the list goes on.
But hey good for them!? Wodger1 maybe they will set up next to you next? Get your scones in the oven now!!

On the enviromental side, but who cares about that!! ( Shame on you, suppose you are all for Pyestock too!?) most of the hand car washes dispose of their waste water down surface drainage (automated ones have to have their water collected and disposed of correctly) which for the ones in Fleet this means it ends up in Fleet Pond!

On the insurance side so when one of the guys jumps in your car ... wet boots and crashes either into another car or worse a member of the public who are you going to expect to pay!!!?? And I have seen a couple of near misses already!
If car washes are the 'only' growth area then they can afford to invest a little..No?
They are popping up everywhere because they have no to little outlay, well at least when they set up as above...my point exactly!

All of this is what happend in Germany so the goverment put a ban on washing your car full stop unless it was at an automated car wash or a car wash with a collection sump drain. This is how and why most of the german car manufactures now used ceramic clearcoats on there cars.
In my trade we have a valet dept, 19 in total all regulated and compliant. We dont process any more or less vehicles at anyone site than any of these guys but as normal its the big boys that get clobbered.

By FFFJ2010 at 07:43 on 23/10/10
Report