AN innovative service in a Tavistock car park to wash people's cars while they shopped has had to call it a day.
New Pin Car Wash Ltd, which operated in the Somerfield car park, cut the service last week, moving some staff to its continuing mobile operation, but making one young woman redundant.
Partner John Masters said business had dropped dramatically over the past two years as people did more of their shopping at Safeway on the edge of town.
The last straw was an unexpected council bill from West Devon for rent owing over the last 18 months.
Mr Masters said due to a mix-up over contracts they thought the business was operating rent-free in the car park.
He was keen not to blame the council, which had provided them with the opportunity to set up the business in the first place.
Two years ago, when New Pin started, Mr Masters and business partner Andrew Martin employed four staff, six days a week, but he said that work had steadily decreased until at the end they only had two staff working three days.
He said if they could have operated rent-free it would have made the service viable as well as providing extra security for car park users.