Outraged residents have blasted a neighbour’s ‘bonkers’ plan to turn the garden of his semi-detached home into a full-scale car wash.

Businessman Hewa Saleh, 44, sparked fury by applying to set up the seven-day-a-week commercial operation next to family homes in Middlesbrough, Teesside.

He plans to rip up his lawn to install a washing bay, four parking spaces, a waiting area and a mini roundabout, with six staff working from 9am to 5pm every day.

But furious locals fear the move will turn their neighbourhood into a ‘traffic-clogged nightmare’ with queues of vehicles, noisy jet washers, and soapy water flooding the pavement.

Eric Nichols, 77, who lives opposite Mr Saleh’s £165,000 home on busy Acklam Road, said: ‘The whole thing is ludicrous.

‘I don’t think he’s considered the implications to others, he’s only thought about himself.

‘It’s not like we’re short of a car wash around here. There’s already three within about two miles and they are in locations where a car wash should be – not in somebody’s front garden.

‘It’s completely harebrained. Even from a highway’s perspective, it’s got to be a non-runner. It would leave the whole road at a standstill.’

Neighbours were left startled when they learned about takeaway owner Mr Salah’s plan to transform the garden of the home where he lives with his wife and toddler-aged son.

He applied to Middlesbrough Council in October, scrawling on a planning application: ‘We are applying to change our outdoor garden into car wash for public.’

Plans detailing the proposed enterprise reveal a car wash canopy, a rest area with seating and space for parking four cars beside a dividing wall with Mr Saleh’s neighbour, Russell Sharpe.

Mr Sharpe, 61, said of the plans: ‘We were getting on before, he was a good neighbour and I let him borrow my tools. But this is just ridiculous.

‘If you look at the plans and what he’s proposing, you can’t fit that in a garden. We’ve got the same square footage. It’s just farcical.

‘We have a shared fence. Drivers, passengers, would be getting in and out overlooking my garden and obviously there’s going to be an increase in noise. The build of the traffic would be hellish.

‘Someone worked out that just to pay his six staff would be £120,000 a year. And that’s before he’s even got a bucket of soap or his chamois leather out.

‘He’s going to have a little roundabout. He’s got a little gazebo built out there already and that’s going to be a waiting area.’

Mr Sharpe added: ‘It just beggars belief. It will affect the value of my house because who would want to live next a car wash?’

Mr Saleh’s application to the council was turned down in December after 97 objections were lodged.

Town councillors also made representations, with Cllr Dennis McCabe writing: ‘Overall this is a very poor application to convert a private residential property into a commercial business.

‘This will lower the value of any private homes in the area (just think of next door) – who would want to buy a house next to a car wash?

‘The style of houses in the area are classical late Victorian style and this was due to the expansion of the town during the early 1900s.

‘This proposed business does not fit in with essence and culture of the area.’

However, Mr Saleh has now lodged an appeal over the council’s planning refusal with housing secretary Angela Rayner now set to decide on the project’s fate.

Jean Nichols, 77, said that neighbours remained ‘anxious’ because the plans had not yet been fully thrown out.

She said: ‘He’s clearly not letting the idea go, despite the volume of opposition to the planning application in the first place.

‘Hopefully Ms Rayner has got a brain because it seems apparent to me that anybody with a modicum of sense would say ‘what’s he thinking about?’

‘Other people have joked that they might open a coal mine in their garden.

‘We’ve lived here for 30-odd years and it’s the last thing I would have thought was going to go in the neighbour’s garden.’

Mr Nichols added: ‘If he wants a car wash, then find a suitable piece of land and run your business and be successful and all the best to you.’

Turning down the initial application, Middlesbrough Council said that the development’s impact on house prices was ‘not a planning consideration’, neither was the concern that the development would set a ‘precedent’.

However, it ruled it was unable to support the scheme because ‘fundamentally there is an issue of the principle of development of the proposal in this location’.

An appeal to the secretary of state was lodged this month by Mr Saleh, reigniting the chance of the garden car wash becoming a reality.

When MailOnline visited the three-bed house, a man answered the door but refused to walk towards the property’s locked gates, shouting repeatedly: ‘No comment’.

Mr Saleh told his local newspaper last year that the car wash would ‘impact the area very positively’.

When pressed on his response to those against his idea, he said: ‘I say why? What’s the reason? People say the first problem is that it will make the area busy, we never make the area busy, I have a plan for everything.’

Kay Clarkson, who lives on Acklam Road, said she knew of no one in favour of the plans and urged Ms Rayner to block the appeal.

Ms Clarkson, 53, said: ‘There’s not a single person that’s in favour of this. Everyone is against this.

‘The traffic is already bad enough and there’s a school at the end of the road.

‘It’s unthinkable that anyone could turn their garden into a car wash.

‘Where does it end? Why don’t I put a little extension in my garden and open a shop?

‘He says he cares about the area but clearly he doesn’t care what people think or how this is going to affect us.

‘If I wanted to sell my home in two years time who’s going to want to buy that property off me when there’s car wash down the road?

‘The whole thing has left me speechless. There are so many reasons why it shouldn’t go ahead. It’s just bonkers.

‘We thought we were at the end of it but now he’s taken it to appeal, so we feel like we are in limbo.’