Dodgy shops ruining high streets

[LateSeptembersunshine]

What’s everyone’s take on this?

Dh was driving through our city today and I was looking around and so many of the high streets are overrun with dodgy shops.

Loads of those shops with LED lights and crates of water outside, barber shops, nail shops, takeaways, vape stores. Then there are all the closed down ones covered in graffiti.

I don’t believe for a second that most of them are making any money and some/most look an absolute mess.

Aibu to think that there should be some more regulation on ‘businesses’, I also think that if a business is allowed to operate then their should be something that says that they should keep the front tidy and in keeping with the area.

The takeaways probably are.

some areas do have that kind of restriction - we got a vape shop which painted neon green. Council soon sorted that out.

For example where I live it is in a conservation area and the shops all have to have uniform signage.

It might seem a bit controlling but honestly it looks so much tidier and stops the place from turning into a shithole.

Its sad and depressing driving around seeing places look so run down and such a state.

You are completely right but there's lots of reasons why they are continuing to exist and becoming more widespread. The main ones, councils don't care about them and won't enforce planning laws about the signage even. Property owners want the highest rent and will take whatever they can get. When no one can afford to open a high street business because there is not enough footfall to support them financially, this is what happens. People stopped using high street businesses. People in general expect everyone to charge Temu prices for things or say they are "too expensive".
I say all this as the owner of a high street retail business.

There's no solution to it. It is the result of everyone shopping in out of town retail parks and, more recently, online. If you do either of these things then you can't in all sincerity wring your hands and complain about it.

I should also add, in my town there are two listed buildings with awful signage plastered all over them. The head of planning (Reform council) has said there is nothing they will do about it. No one really cares what towns look like anymore.

Our most local high street used to be better, there was a Boots, a New Look, a butchers, Clarkes, Wilko, Mountain Warehouse.

A lot of those shops opened bigger, better stores in retail parks where the parking is easier and free. The high street is still hanging on but I can see many more of the shops going before long.

The dodgy shops annoy me. There are 4 egg free cake shops within a few metres of each other. I’ve never seen a single person go into those shops.

Of course it’s not that simple but I feel as though they might aswell knock it all down and build some housing or make it into a green space or anything really.

We seem to have a lot of new high street businesses open for a while and then close?

I genuinely used our high street and I still do use what’s left of it. I think I single handedly kept the New Look going.

But the shops are/were so tiny I can see why people would just drive 5 minutes to one of the retail parks.

We don’t need 4 egg free cake shops, 10 barbers, 8 vape shops, 12 nail salons, 3466422 grim looking takeaways.

If it’s anything like where I live at least some of those are fronts for money laundering and look scruffy as they don’t want any actual customers.

They’re all money laundering. Nail bars, barbers, vape shops, shops no one goes into, beauticians, cash only takeaways and restaurants. All dodgy as hell. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

We haven’t got the egg free cake shops though.

Very typical in many towns and cities. Our town was a fantastic place to shop, eat, great pubs, but unfortunately have almost all closed down. Now in its place are boarded up shops and on the periphery lots of takeaways, Turkish barbers, European supermarkets (which only seem to sell soft drinks and sweets sparsely stocked?), vape shops, nail bars, Asian grocery stores.

It's good to see the spaces being used but yeah defo they're known as dodgy/money laundering apparently.

Foreign criminality is rife in the UK, it's got such a foothold I don't know if we'll ever root it out now.

Is this the same Reform that says they're going to stop the boats and by doing so make everything else fall into place, but they can't sort out signage in high street in their own jurisdiction?

They've started to get court orders locally here, to shut down all the "vape shops" Due to one having the BBC going in undercover and they did a documentary on the illegal goings on so the council have put temporary court orders on at least 6 of the shops in the high st, however, as one shuts another opens.

Someone in power needs to sort this situation once and for all. At one point our small high st had 10 vape shops, that's not inc barbers shops . They've shut about 6 but then a few more have owned again. It's getting out of hand. One of them had a stabbing in the shop last year. It's all causing one big problem the government need to stop.

The barber and nail shops especially are often money laundering fronts. You can make up customers and easily shove an extra few hundred through the till per day.

Egg Free Cake Box does really nice birthday cakes tbf.

What annoy me are the weird off-brand Harry Potter shops. Who needs to buy that much Harry Potter tat in 2026? They're the new American Candy Shops.