A car wash owner who 'can't keep his own car clean' is among businesses left frustrated by dust resulting from the demolition of a former college site. Workers have been using heavy machinery to tear down the former Clarendon College building on Mansfield Road, Nottingham, which local traders say has thrown up disruptive dust.
Preliminary work started last year under plans to transform the site into a new 1,200 secondary school called Bluecoat Trent. Nottingham College transferred ownership of the building to LocalED, an arms-length property company belonging to the Department for Education.
Mohammed Rasol, 48, owner of Super Handy car wash on nearby Sherwood Rise, said the dust had impacted his business and resulted in his own car getting dirty. "It has hurt us, a lot of regular customers are not coming. I asked the company what they were doing but they did do what they said," Mr Rasol said.
Read more: Bestwood neighbours still keeping windows closed due to construction site dust
"After two minutes the cars we have cleaned are dirty again - it is really frustrating. The people over the road thought it was us creating the dust, I had to explain that it wasn't.
"Yesterday I had to wash my own car twice, I can't even keep my own car clean. The top of our canopy has been damaged by the dust. It's everyday and it puts customers off."
Shamraiz Younas, 33, the owner of a building and four businesses in Pelham Road behind the school, said as a result his team weren't opening windows. "No one from AW Enabling [who are working on the site] has come to see us - I do construction myself but there is a way to do it. Instead of dampeners they just had one person with a hose.
"One of my employees has had to work from home because she has asthma. The noise we can put up with but then you have people worried about asbestos. You get all the dust across building windows and all over people's cars too."
A Nottingham City Council spokesperson confirmed Environmental Health officials had been made aware of complaints in relation to the dust issues and were investigating. Tony McLean, director of AW Enabling, the company working on the site, said measures had been in place to control the dust. He added that the company was rethinking its process to further reduce the impact on neighbours.
"We are aware there are complaints about dust and council officers are coming in at 10am this morning. But it is not correct to say that there are not measures in place. The bad day was last week when we were taking on the big building at the back.
"We are trying to make things better - we are using a mist cannon and that relies on a fine mist and can be easily altered by the wind - we have got three other measures in place. We ceased operations when we realised that was causing a problem."
More than £5 million in council grants will be used to build the new secondary school, managed by the DfE who are aiming for it to be ready for 2023. The Department for Education was approached for comment.
Demolition work was overshadowed on May 5 after emergency services were called overnight to a fire to the old campus. Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service later determined it to be a "deliberate ignition".
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