British agency launches awareness campaign to clean up the car wash industry from irregularities

The British Car Wash Advisory Service (CWAS) has launched a project to raise £97,000 ($150,000) through a funding website to create 40 new car wash agents across the UK, in an effort to promote awareness for their WashMark program.

The project has been created by the CWAS, an independent non-government funded organization, with the goal of helping new agents set up their own legal businesses by training and supporting them.

The CWAS project requires £97,000 ($150,000) which they hope to fully cover through a microcredit campaign with donations to their profile on the Gofundme website.

“The UK car wash industry is in a mess and despite the valiant efforts of some members of the industry, successive governments and their agencies still continue to pay only ‘lip service’ to the problem, resulting in approximately 19,000 unregulated wash sites across the UK, costing the UK tax payer in the region of £1 billion per year,” has said Dawn Frazer, Managing Director of CWAS, in statements to PetrolPlaza.

The British agency monitors and helps car wash sites that are, or would like to be, fully legitimate. There are almost 23,000 car wash sites in the UK, out of which approximately 19,000 are considered ‘unregulated’, according to CWAS.

“Our aim through the rollout of the WashMark, other services and a national Washday in 2016, is to raise awareness of how serious the problem is currently in the UK and deal with it in a head on fashion,” said Dawn Frazer.

Car wash site irregularities include lacking correct drainage, which results in groundwater pollution; absence of adequate insurance - only 7,000 out of the 23,000 registered centers are currently registered with an insurance company; not having employer’s liability insurance; and not paying corporation tax or business rates.

The ultimate goal of CWAS is to register legitimate car wash sites with WashMark, the wash industry certificate of quality and compliance which has three levels: bronze, silver and gold.

“This is a new tough line in the sand, and given that organised crime seem to think that the UK is an easy target for human trafficking and that car wash sites are a main work source, it is time that the UK wash industry and their consumers say ‘enough!’,” explains Mrs. Frazer.

The funding website for the CWAS project can be found at: http://www.gofundme.com/40newjobs.

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