00:00there's no doubt when we sort of walk down our high streets we see sort of many
00:03shop units that certainly don't feel right yeah when you go along sort of a
00:07short sort of stretch of sort of the high street and you see half a dozen
00:11sort of barber shops or vape shops or something else yeah that there's just
00:15not the sort of the custom there there is something sort of peculiar but of
00:19course without the sort of the actual evidence but undoubtedly this is the sort
00:22of the realm of councils if there's criminal activity well of course that's
00:26sort of the customs and excise to sort of to deal with but of course there's a
00:30limit in terms of their resources councils are also so they've been hollowed out
00:34because of government cuts but of course what this does do as the sort of the
00:38the traditional sort of high street declines and it gets replaced by this
00:41you know it brings in a different type of clientele also there's a whole set of
00:46other issues that go with it and of course if you sort of bring in in
00:49different types of clientele particularly of course if there's
00:51nefarious activities I can put it like that then of course it becomes a hostile
00:55environment for the very people that you want to keep the high street alive it's a
00:59real difficult one and undoubtedly of course there's there's other
01:03circumstances also issues at play not the least of which of course is to the
01:07internet of course why would you sort of go to the high street and you know pay
01:10for parking all this hassle when you can order online and in some cases have it
01:14delivered within a couple of hours but you know the high street is a sort of
01:18peculiar sort of British thing of course it's not to say it happens elsewhere you
01:21know people do like the sort of the social interaction of going into shops
01:24trying garments on chatting to other people and of course it's a sort of a it's a
01:29slow well but sure decline which of course is not good for society in general
01:34therefore of course something needs to be sort of done new research from anti-money
01:40laundering firm smart search suggests as much as four hundred and sixty four
01:45million pounds may have been moved through more than three thousand suspected
01:49shell companies registered as hairdressers barbers beauty salons and
01:54convenience stores over the past decade the company analyzed companies house
01:59records from 2016 to 2026 and identified businesses with unusually short life spans
02:06repeated addresses and similar patterns of incorporation and closure smart search
02:12says the true figure could however be much higher potentially exceeding one
02:16billion pounds when other cash intensive sectors such as car washes nail salons
02:22and phone shops are included the findings do not mean every business in these
02:26sectors is suspicious the government has already announced tougher action
02:30against rogue high street operators including longer closure orders and
02:35stronger local powers while HMRC says it will carry out more than 30,000
02:41interventions this year targeting tax fraud and illegal activity it's really complex
02:48leveling up and of course this is very much a sort of a product of sort of the
02:52Johnson administration and again we may criticize Boris Johnson for a lot of
02:55things so you know this was you know well intentioned as is the road to hell but
02:59the point is though that you know if you're gonna do this and make everywhere
03:03prosperous you're gonna have to throw tremendous resources in and of course the
03:06point is then are we gonna have sort of government shops for instance just for the
03:10sake of sort of making the high street will look normal whatever that may mean it
03:15relies upon retailers and retailers also profit-making enterprises and they know
03:19where they're so the markets are and if you're not making money in one place you
03:22close down and move elsewhere or indeed as we're sort of seeing this you know
03:26worrying regularity big chains disappearing never to be seen again and of
03:31course everyone knows Woolworths is a sort of a case in point we saw it with
03:34double eight Smiths and there are many other sort of stores and of course who knows
03:38who's going to be next the difficulties were coming into what's always regard as
03:42the traditionally busy period I'm talking about the sort of the run-up to
03:45Christmas and of course people don't buy as much because of course they're
03:48stretched but of course the difficulty is as this expression goes by what means
03:52you're going to make it different and of course it would take tremendous effort
03:55and of course lots and lots of money so if we're going to have anything that
03:59replace it we have to sort of make the high street somewhere people want to go for
04:03for instance your doctors maybe sort of gymnasiums they're sort of increasing we
04:07have lots of coffee shops we probably don't need any more of that you need to
04:10have them as places where people want to come and congregate because you know we
04:13are social creatures if I sort of may put it in sociological terms we like to go
04:17and see other people and of course the idea of sort of sitting you know in your
04:21bedroom or wherever it might be ordering things online you know that that
04:24doesn't give you that sort of social interaction so we sort of seek it
04:27elsewhere so yeah I mean that there's and of course this is something where I local
04:31authorities health authorities perhaps even the police you know they should
04:36have a sort of a presence on the high street to sort of make it sort of a
04:38place that people feel safe in so it's a multi-agency approach and of course as I've
04:43sort of said before but it requires a lot of coordination time and of course the
04:47old sort of problem money so the challenge now is turning those warnings
04:51into successful enforcement ministers say the aim is to disrupt criminal
04:56businesses without penalizing legitimate traders with councils police trading
05:01standards company house and HMRC all involved the next test will be whether
05:07suspicious operators can be identified and importantly closed more quickly
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