EXCLUSIVE: Nigel Farage has hailed an Express investigation into a vape and barber shop hotspot.
Accrington has a massive oversupply of Turkish barbers and vape shops (Image: Shabir Noorzai)
Violent criminal groups have taken over the British high street using a number of Turkish barbers and vape shops as brazen fronts for illegal activities, experts have warned.
An invasion of “dodgy” shops has transformed routine inspections of suspicious premises into volatile confrontations, according to Surrey Trading Standards officer Lee Ormandy. He described how council employees now face being assaulted, spat at, locked in shops and having their vehicles damaged by those involved in criminal networks.
“Almost three quarters of the profession experience intimidatory behaviour or being threatened with violence,” he said in reference to a new Chartered Trading Standards Institute report that also found 96% of its members had encountered organised crime in their duties.
“Over recent years, this has escalated. Officers are now wearing stab-proof vests and body cameras. Nine times out of ten, we will have to take police officers with us.”
Ormandy’s comments came in response to an Express investigation that exposed the dramatic oversupply of Turkish barbers and vape shops in Accrington, Lancashire.
The Northern town has double the number of outlets to local demand, with one street hosting an incredible 15 barbers.
The Express headed to Accrington to make sense of a vape shop oversupply (Image: Shabir Noorzai)
Locals we spoke to bemoaned how their once-beloved high street had become filled with a number of “dodgy” outlets, some of which local business owners claimed were engaged in crime.
When we visited a selection of the town’s 36 barbers and 14 vape shops, we found bare shelves, impossibly low prices, and staff, many of whom couldn’t speak English, surprised to see customers. In one case, a Turkish barber shop employee leapt behind a door when the Express arrived, while a vape shop ‘open 7 days a week’ closed its shutters as we approached.
Nearly all the employees we spoke with quoted sales figures below what a profitable business could afford.
Sohail Bashir, who owns 4K Barbers in the centre of Accrington, said he was being run out of business by competitors somehow able to absorb costs that would make him insolvent overnight.
“I’m struggling to be honest, it’s a dead town,” he said, “I’m working on my own. I need to do 10 haircuts a day to cover costs, but I’m only getting 5-6. Yet other shops in the town have at least two barbers sitting there doing nothing.
“I’m closing down soon. I counted a few months ago, and it was more than 55 barbers within a 5-minute drive.”
A massive oversupply
There is a massive oversupply of Turkish barbers and vape shops (Image: Shabir Noorzai)
Analysis by the Express showed that, each day in Accington, if the number of men needing a trim were evenly spread across all barbers, every barber would have three customers. However, in order to cover costs reasonably, barbers need 10 cuts.
Over the course of a year, this amounts to a £2.62 million revenue black hole across all the shops.
The specialist vape shop demand shortfall was even more stark. Stores in Accrington need to have a customer every 8 minutes to cover costs.
But if each store got an even split of the expected legal sales from the section of the population in the Lancashire town that vapes, there would be only about one customer every half an hour.
That calculation becomes almost impossible when you consider these outlets are also competing with scores of convenience stores that also stock vapes.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage praised the Express investigation for tackling an “important” if undervalued topic.
“When I first sounded the alarm about this, I was ridiculed and laughed at,” he said.
“But as usual, I have been one step ahead on this topic. The British public are not stupid. They know it’s a mathematical impossibility for these businesses to operate, yet many owners seem to have a Lamborghini out the back.”
Josh Nicholson of the Centre for Social Justice said it was often the case that those involved in “illegal activity” would offer landlords higher sums to rent units, making it even harder for legitimate businesses to thrive, especially in struggling town centres.
“They’re pushing out those who are working hard, getting on and paying the bills,” he explained. “It kind of feeds the sense of a zero-sum game in modern Britain, where those ignoring the rules can get on and get rich and people playing by them suffer.”
Nicholson, who is the Head of Programme for Housing and Communities at the think tank, added that there were links between the crime groups operating in the high street and illegal migration across the English Channel.
“When you talk about stopping the incentives to cross the channel, one of the issues is the promise of [illegal work].” he said.
“Ultimately that has to start with where these opportunities come from [that] provide the foundation to work to start a life in the UK illegally.”
During the Express’s trip to Accrington, we also discovered children talking to vape shop owners and outlets, who warned each other of our presence so they could hide. Many had no visible internet presence or Companies House listing.
Post-visit investigations also found strong evidence of “corporate phoenixing” – the practice of intentionally shutting down an indebted company to avoid paying what it owes, only to immediately resurrect the exact same business under a new name, debt-free.
One vape shop on a non-descript residential road also appeared to be acting as an address mill, a single physical location that serves as the official registered address for a swathe of businesses.
We shared all our findings with the local authority Lancashire County Council spokesman for Lancashire County Council said: “Our Trading Standards service takes concerns about businesses extremely seriously and will take robust action where there is intelligence or evidence of breaches of trading standards law, and we carry out regular, joint operations with the police and Home Office officials.
“Anyone with concerns about a business should report this to Trading Standards via the Citizens Advice consumer helpline, and in cases where there is an immediate risk or suspected criminal activity, directly to the police.”