Councils will soon get new planning powers over vape and betting shops, and many already limit hot food takeaways. We counted every bookmaker, vape shop, and takeaway within the town centre boundary of 150 UK towns and cities, then compared them with the number of shop units on each high street.
Upton Park in East London has the most crowded high street, with 12.7 of these shops for every 100 units. Newport leads outside London. Richmond upon Thames has the fewest.
Search for your town below, or start with the key findings.
The two shop types the new powers target
The government’s new powers cover betting shops and vape shops, so this ranking leaves takeaways out. Takeaways stay in the main index because councils already control them through planning in the same way.
Shops per 100 high street units
About half of vape shops and bookies are within 400m of a school
The government wants councils to stop new vape shops opening near schools. We measured the straight-line distance from every shop in the index to the nearest school. 400m is roughly a five-minute walk.
Share of each shop type within 400m of a school
How close they are
A third fewer betting shops than in 2014
The 2014 figure is from Gambling Commission industry statistics. Today's count is the live premises register. The town changes below compare the register in September 2024 with today, for Great Britain only.
The map
Circle area shows shops per 100 units for the categories switched on above. Select a circle to open that high street.
Do pricier towns have fewer of these shops?
Average house price for the council area from the UK House Price Index, . House prices and these shops both track local incomes, so read this as a pattern. It does not show that one causes the other.
The full table
Download the full data as a CSV to use in your own reporting.
Scroll inside the table to see every column. Town names and headings stay in place. Select any heading to sort.
How we counted
The high street
Each town uses its largest centre from the CDRC Retail Centre Boundaries, the open dataset researchers use to map UK town centres. We took the biggest centre in each council area, so a city counts once. The unit count for each centre comes from the same dataset and is what every rate is divided by.
Bookmakers
Betting shops on the Gambling Commission premises register, placed on the map by postcode. Adult gaming centres and bingo halls are left out. Northern Ireland sits outside the Commission's remit, so Belfast uses Google listings of bookmakers.
Vape shops
Google Maps listings that are open and sit inside the boundary. A vape shop has to say so in its name, so a corner shop with a vape counter does not count.
Takeaways
Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland hygiene records filed as takeaways. Bakeries, sandwich bars and coffee chains share that category, so we removed them by name.
Schools
Open schools for children of school age from the Department for Education register in England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use schools mapped in OpenStreetMap, with training centres and private tuition removed.
Why takeaways are included
Hot food takeaways, like betting shops, need planning permission to open, and councils can limit them near schools. The new government powers focus on betting and vape shops, so the index also gives a ranking with takeaways left out.
Limits
- Google listings can lag behind closures and openings.
- Unit counts come from the 2021 boundary release.
- Rates for small centres move a lot with one extra shop.
- House prices cover the whole council area.
Sources
- Gambling Commission premises register and industry statistics
- CDRC Retail Centre Boundaries (OGL)
- FSA Food Hygiene Rating open data
- Department for Education, Get Information about Schools
- HM Land Registry UK House Price Index
- Google Places and OpenStreetMap
About this study
Every figure comes from a public source, from the Gambling Commission premises register to Food Standards Agency hygiene records and HM Land Registry house prices. The full method sits at the bottom of the index.
Journalists are welcome to use the figures with a credit to BylineCoverage. The complete dataset is available upon request.