UK’s unhealthiest high streets revealed as report warns towns cutting short lives of residents

High streets stacked with betting shops, fast-food outlets and tanning salons could be significantly shortening the lives of locals, a report has warned.

Residents living in towns with lots of bookies and off-licences die younger than those with plenty of libraries and pharmacies, research by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) found.

Its ranking of 70 high streets found those living in the top 10 healthy areas lived an average of two-and-a-half years longer than those with the 10 unhealthiest high streets, according to Health on the High Street: Running on Empty report, which was first run in 2015.

Grimsby was crowned the unhealthiest town, followed by Walsall and Blackpool. Edinburgh, followed by Canterbury and Taunton, topped the list of ”healthy” high streets, gaining points for amenities like libraries, pubs, coffee shops, pharmacies, and vape shops.

“Our rankings illustrate how unhealthy businesses concentrate in areas which already experience higher levels of deprivation, obesity and lower life expectancy,” Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the RSPH, said.

“While the face of the British high street continues to change, the environmental and economic factors that influence inequalities in health outcomes across the country remain stubbornly intractable.

“Reshaping these high streets to be more health-promoting could serve as a tool to help redress this imbalance.”

According to the report there are now 2,000 vape shops in the UK selling e-cigarettes and their nicotine liquids, double the amount just three years ago.

In the last five years 4,000 more fast-food outlets have opened, and in the most deprived borough they now outnumber those in the most affluent areas five to one

Vacant shop fronts have also risen from seven per cent in 2007 – prior to the last recession – up to 11 per cent in 2017 .

The findings come in the wake of the Autumn Budget which included several measures aimed at helping ailing high street shops facing decimation by their online rivals.

Philip Hammond announced that 500,000 small retailers will see a third knocked off their business rates, while a digital services tax will be levied at tech giants with global revenues above £500m.

A £650m fund was also announced to improve transport access for struggling town centres and to turn empty shops into homes and offices.

While the RSPH welcomed the move, Ms Cramer said: “We are concerned that they do not go far enough.”

She said local authorities were unable to reshape their high streets to promote positive businesses due to ongoing funding cuts.

Dr Max Davie, officer for health promotion at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said unhealthy areas also tend to have the highest poverty and this ”blights lives” by increasing rates of mental health, smoking and obesity.

“That’s why we are calling on the government to work with local councils to make communities healthier, happier and more prosperous places to live,” he added.

“Families must have access to nutritious and affordable food so councils need to ensure high streets are not littered with junk food – especially those close to schools and colleges. They must also ensure there are safe spaces for families to be active.”