Leeds City Council has refused a planning application to turn a disused pub’s car park into a hand car wash, citing numerous concerns over noise, visual character, traffic and drainage.
Developers had sought to turn the car park at the Midway Public House in Yeadon, nine miles to the north-west of Leeds, into a hand car wash, arguing that such a business would provide a “useful service” for the area, while also creating six new jobs.
The local authority had other ideas, though, setting out that a car wash and its “equipment, screens and other associated paraphernalia” on the site would create “visual clutter that will be harmful to the character and appearance of the site and wider residential street scene”.
The council also said that the “noise and nuisance” created by the business would “result in harm” to residents, while raising concerns that road safety would be compromised due to additional traffic and queues, and the displacement of parking that a change of use to the land would bring.
Leeds City Council added the pub could “reopen at any point and generate parking demand” that could not be accommodated should the car wash operate from the inn’s car park.
Lastly, the authority argued that the “lack of drainage information” contained in planning documents meant the application had not demonstrated that “the site can accommodate the additional drainage capacity” a car wash would require.
