Crackdown on vape shops and bookies as Burnham gives councils power to choose what is on their high streets
The government is set to give English councils greater powers to reject licences for betting shops, vape stores and venues with round-the-clock slot machines, as part of a drive to revive Britain's "hollowed-out" high streets. Deputy Prime Minister Andy Burnham will scrap the "aim to permit" rule, introduced under Tony Blair's 2005 gambling liberalisation, which currently restricts town halls' ability to refuse such licences, while new vape shops will need planning approval from next year and the legal definition of a vape store will be tightened to close loopholes.
New stores selling round-the-clock slot machines will also require planning consent, and police will be able to close "dodgy" barbers, vape shops and nail salons for up to a year, twice the current limit, to investigate suspected links to organised crime. The Centre for Social Justice think tank, which found Britain has lost nearly 1,800 pubs and bars while vape and tobacco shops have risen to almost 2,200 since 2016, welcomed the plans, while shadow local government secretary Sir James Cleverly blamed Labour's business rate rises for high street decline and called instead for rate cuts.
- Councils get new powers to block betting shops and vape stores
- Blair-era "aim to permit" gambling rule to be scrapped
- Police can shut suspect shops for up to a year, double before
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Local communities understand their high streets better than distant regulators, and councils deserve discretion to shape their public realm according to local values. The proliferation of betting shops and vape stores has demonstrably replaced pubs and independent retailers that provided employment and community gathering spaces, whilst these businesses can cause genuine harms—particularly gambling addiction. Allowing councils to refuse licences respects both democratic localism and evidence-based policy rooted in communities' legitimate concerns about their high streets.
The case against
The fundamental problem is economic, not regulatory: high streets have become unviable for traditional retail due to rising business rates and overheads, not because of betting shops or vape stores. These businesses proliferate precisely because they can afford high street rents when traditional retailers cannot, so restricting them treats the symptom rather than the disease. More planning requirements and regulatory barriers simply add costs that deter business investment; if the government genuinely wanted to revive high streets, it would cut business rates and reduce bureaucratic burden, allowing the market to allocate commercial space efficiently rather than selecting which businesses are acceptable.