A hand car wash that was operating without planning consent has been forced to close after the local authority refused a retrospective application for the business to operate.
Shak’s Car Wash in Walsall featured a 14m by 9m three-metre high canopy, and had been operating from the site of a former garage workshop for around a year. Following an enforcement notice from Walsall Council the business applied to operate via the proper channels.
Application documents stated that the car wash would provide an “elegant style car wash/detailing and car sales pitch” featuring “state of the art equipment”, while also incorporating “various aspects of sustainable design” and supporting six full-time, and four part-time jobs.
That application resulted in a refusal notice from the local authority, which cited a variety of concerns in its decision.
The council’s officers found that the application did not demonstrate that safe entrance and exit points existed at the site, posing “significant harm to highway safety”, while also ruling the application failed to demonstrate sufficient site drainage, or mitigation against water spray escaping onto the pavement.
