A BID for a car wash on the outskirts of Haddington looks likely to stall unless a planning condition is removed.

A proposed drive-thru car wash on the A199, on the northern edge of Haddington Retail Park, was initially turned down by East Lothian Council’s planning department earlier this year.

But that decision was overturned by members of the council’s local review body, who imposed several conditions on its implementation.

However, Gleam Machine Haddington is now calling on the council to look again at one of those conditions.

READ MORE: Haddington: Gleam Machine given green light for car wash

Tony Thomas, of APT Planning and Development Ltd, is representing the business, which is expanding from its base at Dunbar’s Spott Road Industrial Estate.

It wants condition eight – relating to the stability of land on a section of the application site – to be removed, describing it as “unreasonable”.

A supporting statement with the latest application stressed that Gleam Machine Haddington was “happy” to secure planning permission and “also happy” to comply with conditions when the scheme was approved.

The statement alleged that the “developer of Haddington Retail Park, immediately to the south, had illegally entered the site and dumped waste material from their development on the application site and around the area specifically referred to in Condition 8.

“The impact of this has been to increase the level of the land within the eastern part of the application site by approximately one metre and it was this part of the site that the councillors took particular interest in.”

Mr Thomas noted that the planned car wash had “generated a huge amount of popular/public support” and claimed “it would be grossly unfair of the actions of a third party coupled with a condition that the planning officials did not deem necessary is preventing the implementation of the permission”.

He said: “There is no history or reason to suggest that the part of the site closest to the retail park cannot take parked vehicles when accessing the car wash, whilst the area where the actual washing/valeting takes place, along with the office/storage buildings is outwith any area close to the slope to the retail park/petrol filling station.

“Were the proposal to involve significant building works or a process that placed significant pressure on the site, the condition would be a reasonable one.

“As things stand, it is unreasonable to have a condition attached to the permission that neither of the two professional advisors (planning and flooding/structures) deemed necessary.”

The business intends to invest £200,000 in the project and create nine full-time and four part-time jobs.

Mr Thomas described the current appearance of the site as “an unkempt brownfield site” and said the proposals would “significantly improve this situation whilst also providing a better outlook than the current view”.