WIREDGOV

Crime is running rife on Britain's high streets. Could the EU’s ‘administrative approach’ support better enforcement?

In May 2026, the Home Office announced the creation of a High Street Organised Crime Unit, pledging £30m over the next three years to clamp down on the criminal gangs abusing local business structures to launder money, evade tax, sell illegal goods and employ – or enslave – irregular migrants.

Investing in better enforcement is a much welcome and needed development to ensure the National Crime Agency (NCA) can disrupt the estimated £1bn flowing through high street fronts in the UK. But enforcement alone is unlikely to solve the problem at hand.

To truly combat criminality on our high streets, the structural conditions which have made British town centres so hospitable to such activity in the first place must be addressed, namely the serious deficiencies in local governance, planning and commercial tenancy frameworks that have allowed bad actors to hijack town centres across the country.

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