The quiet Welsh town filled with Turkish barber shops where residents joke you never have to queue for a haircut… because there are no customers

Locals joke that you’ll never have to queue for a haircut in Porth, a small town in South Wales with fourteen hairdressing salons.

And they’re not wrong. In fact, it would be very difficult for you to find another customer.

The Daily Mail caught up with Porth on Wednesday last week for a snapshot of the seemingly thriving hair care scene, which has grown to the point of one salon for every 426 people.

It comes as suspicions grow over a boom in ‘Turkish-style’ barbershops, which police believe are being used as a front for a minority of criminal gangs.

Last year, hundreds of barbershops were raided in an operation led by the National Crime Agency; This operation led to the arrest of dozens of people on charges ranging from money laundering and drug dealing to modern slavery.

Cold Fade became the fourteenth barbershop to open in Porth eleven months ago in the face of strong local opposition.

These days it looks impressive, with six £700 custom-made blue chairs facing circular mirrors and a sound system pumping out rap music.

But something was missing at noon on Wednesday; customers. The Mail tracked just four men arriving at Cold Fade for a haircut between 9.30am and 2pm.

If they had each chosen the standard £12 option, only £48 would have gone into the till; This is not enough to pay the only barber on duty who earns more than minimum wage.

It was the same table as the previous Wednesday, with only one customer entering between 9.30am and 1pm.

Today it looks impressive, with six £700 custom-made blue chairs facing circular mirrors and a sound system pumping out rap music. But it doesn’t seem to attract many customers

Other businesses on the street noticed that the barbers at the upscale-looking salon spent most of their day ‘standing around’.

The situation was similar at Porth Barbers, 100 meters down Hannah Street, which welcomed just two customers between 10am and 2pm last Wednesday.

It must be said at this point that there is no evidence that Cold Fade or any of the other barbers featured in this article were involved in any crime.

A staff member at Cold Fade told the Mail that Wednesdays were particularly quiet and the claim that barbers were linked to crime was a ‘crazy cliché’.

But the chairman of Porth Chamber of Commerce, which opposed Cool Fade’s establishment on Hannah Street, said the figures “don’t add up”.

There were 34 separate letters of objection when a Cardiff-based Kurdish businessman applied for planning permission to turn a former entertainment venue into Cold Fade.

However, Rhondda Cynon Taff Council approved the new barber shop on the grounds that it would bring the property back to useful use and make a positive contribution to the wider retail centre.

Following next month’s Senedd election, Porth Chamber of Commerce chairman Dan Parry will call on the new Welsh Government to review planning laws to protect town centers from the burden created by an overabundance of barbers, nail salons, vape shops and tattoo parlors.

Mr Parry, 26, told the Mail: ‘I question how planning laws can allow so many businesses to offer the same services. We need more diversity. We have so many hairdressers and barbers in Porth and simple maths doesn’t add up.

‘This is a worrying situation and you hear people’s suspicions that barber shops are fronts for illegal activity but you can’t prove it unless you have evidence to back it up.’

A barber getting a haircut in Cold Fade – a rare sight on the day the Daily Mail conducted its snapshot survey

The sole stylist on duty at Porth barbers last Wednesday spent more than two hours without a single client

A survey has found that locals in Porth are already feeling an overabundance of certain businesses ‘such as fast-food takeaways, beauty salons and barber shops’.

Our quick survey in Porth revealed that Lazaro barbershop on Pontypridd Road is busier because it is popular with young people who want the latest styles.

There were a few customers waiting to get their hair cut at Yusif’s on Hannah Street.

But last Wednesday the sole stylist on duty at Porth barbers was left without a single customer for more than two hours.

A businessman on Hannah Street, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Sometimes there are three people there doing nothing.

‘They sit around a gas fireplace because the air needs to cool down by sitting around all day. If they were standing all day and busy cutting hair, they would generate their own heat and keep warm.

‘But it has to have customers and you’ll hardly see anyone going in there.’

The government has now promised to give councils new powers to block unwanted shops in towns like Porth.

Ministers name-checked betting shops, e-cigarette shops and ‘fake barbers’ as they announced their plans.

Housing Minister Steve Reed said locals were mostly right to be suspicious.

“In many parts of the country you’ll find people reporting that a lot of barbershops have suddenly opened and not a lot of people are going in and getting a haircut,” he told LBC at the time.

‘Who knows what they stand for, but neither the council nor society has been able to stop them from multiplying, but now they will have the power to restrict them.’

Asked if he thought the stores were being used for criminal activity such as drug dealing or money laundering, he said: ‘We know some of them are.

‘I won’t say this for all of them, but some of them are.

‘The point is that communities need the power to stop them from proliferating where there are problems.’