Irregular hand-wash services sink UK's automatic car wash business

The United Kingdom's automatic car wash business is suffering due to the competition from East European immigrants who offer cheaper hand-wash services, according to a Daily Mail story.

Owners of gas stations and the Petrol Retailers Association have complained that their investment in automatic car washes is not paying off due to these new cheap hand-wash services, which in many cases work ‘cash-in-hand’ and pay no taxes, reports the English tabloid.

According to the Association, the British government could be losing as much as £200 million a year due to the unpaid taxes, National Insurance and business rates of these companies which hire foreign workers.

“About 70 per cent of all retail washes are now done by hand and the great majority of these people are completely unregulated,” said Brian Madderson, chairman of the Association.

Madderson also warned of the harm these workers could be doing to themselves by using strong chemicals which they later through down the sewer.

“They’re using all kinds of horrible chemicals, particularly to clean alloy wheels, and there’s very little done to stop this stuff just being flushed into the local waterways,” he added.