The proliferation of the cheesy “American-style” shops has been seen as symbolic of the road’s decline after the departure of main names together with Debenhams, House of Fraser and Topshop .
But a report this week by the Labour -run council’s overview and scrutiny committee means that enforcement motion is beginning to have an effect.
The report mentioned: “We have ramped up the pressure on Candy stores, souvenir and vape shops, to make clear the status quo is not acceptable. Following multiple attempts to engage with each freeholder and long leaseholder, requesting that they do all they can stop letting agents leasing empty properties to candy stores or souvenir shops, we then carried out a transparency release of those who failed to engage positively with the council.
“This exercise triggered a number of conversations with freeholders and long leaseholders on the specific actions that could help to remove candy stores in their particular contractual situations, and those conversations are ongoing, with some parties even inviting trading standards action to enable them to begin legal action against their tenants.”
Westminster chief Adam Hug mentioned: “We have energetically pursued unscrupulous traders who sell unsafe or fake goods, impounding more than £1million of items in 18 months.”
He added that the sweet shops “form part of a sophisticated operation which is skilled at exploiting UK legal loopholes”
The variety of retailers had fallen to 21 earlier than, solely to rebound to 29, because the council has increasingly played “whack-a-mole” with new stores that open up quickly after others are shut down.
Hug has claimed the shops have value taxpayers a minimum of £8 million in unpaid enterprise charges.
