Shoppers who want to get into some shops in a West End street have to knock for workers to let them in.
Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan is under fire over shoplifting (Image: Getty)
Shop staff in London’s famous Strand thoroughfare are locking their doors during opening hours because of rampant shoplifting in Sir Sadiq Khan‘s “lawless” capital. Shoppers who want to get into some businesses in the street have to knock for workers to let them in.
Susan Hall, who leads the Conservative group at the London Assembly, said this was Mayor Sadiq Khan’s “lawless London“. She said: “What message does this give to tourists? It basically says the city is closed.”
Ms Hall told The Sun: “The Mayor hasn’t stood up for shops. It’s damaging London.”
Women’s clothes shop, Jigsaw, has reportedly put a notice up at its Strand branch to let shoppers know they will need to wait to be let in.
According to the same publication, it reads: “We are operating a locked door policy. Please knock and a member of staff will be with you shortly”. The idea is said to have come from an O2 branch over the road from Jigsaw.
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “The Mayor is clear that shoplifting is not a victimless crime. He fully supports the Met Police’s data-driven and targeted approach to tackling offenders, which has seen 163% more shoplifting cases solved this year than in the same period as last year.
“The Mayor’s record £1.16billion policing budget is protecting 935 neighbourhood policing roles, empowering the Met to focus on theft hotspots and ensuring officers are visible in our communities and tackling local priorities.
“There is clearly more to do and the Mayor is committed to working closely with the Government and the Met Commissioner to create an even stronger neighbourhood policing team so that we can continue building a safer London for everyone.”
Some shops in the Strand have adopted a ‘locked door’ approach to shoplifting (Image: Getty)
Between August 2024 and July this year there were 86,599 reported incidents of shoplifting in London, according to Met Police figures.
Scotland Yard made more than 1,300 arrests during a crackdown on crime and anti-social behaviour in 20 hotspots across London.
Between June 30 and August 10 there were 1,376 arrests in those hotspots – up a third compared to the same period last year
England and Wales hit a record high this year with 530,643 reported shoplifting offences in the year to March, Office for National Statistics figures show. This is the highest since current police recording practices started in 2003.
The figure led British Retailers Association boss Tom Ironside to say retail theft is “spiralling out of control”.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper unveiled the Crime and Policing Bill earlier this year, which includes measures which she said would tackle shoplifting.
She said the Government plans to boost the number of police patrols in more than 500 town centres and the number of PCSOs and neighbourhood officers will increase by 3,000 by spring 2026.
