Wheel washing?

In respose to residents’ questions about lorries tracking their mud (big MUD) into the roads, we’ve had this information from Martin Deans, planning officer at the Vale.

This is an excerpt.

[Developers also made the] decision not to install a wheel wash at this stage but to opt for the more expensive option of intensive washing of the road surface every day. The site manager is concerned that, were a wheel-wash located near to the site entrance, as it would need to be in order for it to be effective, the effect of the poor weather would be a significant risk of a large volume of liquidised mud and other debris flowing from the site into Lime Road and then running downhill along Laburnum Road, causing more widespread problems that will be much more difficult to combat. Mud is being deposited onto the road by vehicles leaving the site, however, the road is being swept regularly every day to clean as much of the deposit as possible, and then intensively washed to remove any remaining deposit to leave the road in a clean state.

I’m glad to know some of the thinking behind decisions. All we were able to see was that there was no wheel washing going on. Now that I know why, it makes sense.