Across England and Wales, with its population of 60,854,727, there are now 44,995 barber shops and salons - one for every 1,352 people on average.
It was once a centre of the linen trade with a railway featuring the world's first permanent steam train for passengers - but Darlington is now one of the barber capitals of the UK.
The total number of premises for the entire UK now stands at 50,535, an increase of 12.3% on the 44,990 in 2019. But police have expressed fears that some premises, often in the same street as other outlets and seemingly bereft of customers, may be money-laundering operations for crime gangs. But its soaring number of salons and barber shops now mean it has just over a third more than the average for towns and districts in England and Wales, per head of population. It is in stark contrast to West Devon which is has the lowest proportion of barbers on the mainland in England and Wales, with 20 premises serving a population of 58,754 – a rate of one for every 2,938 people.
Turkish barber boss, Ako Omar, 35, stood proudly outside his Istanbul Barbers - of which he says the ownership is actually Kurdish Iraqi One of its bosses, Ako Omar, 35, said: 'We're called Istanbul Barbers, but the ownership is actually Kurdish Iraqi. We offer all the same services as any traditional Turkish barber.
'We're a hard-working business so it's frustrating to see Turkish barber shops being linked to crime. Owners have worked hard to build up their businesses and make them into a success, it's insulting to hear things like that.'Serhan Duman, 34, who moved to County Durham from Turkey ten-years ago-and trained as a barber in Darlington, before opening his barber's shop Serhan's in Crown Street in 2022, is fully booked through the Christmas period.
'People might question,"Why are there so many Turkish barbers?" but the barbering culture is changing in the UK. But local barber Craig Egan, 31, who opened his 1950s retro-style barbers called Oakley's in August last year is not so enthusiastic about the arrival of Turkish barbers, although he does not begrudge their success While his business continues to flourish, he recently had a Turkish barber open a few doors down, the latest in a growing number that he believes 'dilutes' the barbering tradition he was trained in.
The last time that Darlington found itself top of a league-style table was in the 1930s when it had more cinema seats than any other town in the UK, according to Darlington Borough Council 'The other issue I have with them is skin infections. I had to say to a customer that I wouldn't be able to cut his hair because he'd contracted ringworm. He'd been to a Turkish barber, and it looks as though the equipment hadn't been kept clean.
The rise in Turkish barbering hasn't gone unnoticed by the town's men who now have a bewildering choice of salons. 'But it's very often the case that you go past and they're empty with the barbers having nothing to do. You have to wonder where the money is coming from to keep them open and also why we now have so many.'
Toby said: 'It's £15-£20 for a haircut at the barber I use, and you can get a haircut for about half that price at a Turkish barber so you can see why people use them. In some cases they're charging as little as £7, which seems very cheap.' The number of barbers in Eccles Road, Salford, Greater Manchester, has mushroomed from three to up to 16 in just a few years
‘Now I have counted a total of 16 on this road and a bit further into Eccles town. There are too many and it has become difficult to make a living.' Nearby, with an ocean blue sign is Zaza Cutz while just off the indoor Brooks shopping centre is another simply called Turkish Barbers At Zaza Kutz, there was just one customer while there was nobody at Iman during lunchtime when office workers often pop out for a trim.
'It is all about supply and demand. If people did not want to go these places they would soon close down.' He added: 'I know there has been a big rise in some cities, but because they are spread out over a big area in Winchester you do not feel that there are too many.' Adam Swierczyvski, who runs a mobile snack stall opposite one of the Turkish barbers, said he was surprised to see how busy they were.
Anthony McGurk, 74, said: 'There's far too many now. They seem to be everywhere. I think it's has a detrimental effect on the town because we lack the diversity in the variety of shops we once had. 'If you ask me, Brentwood High Street is a dive. A lot of the clothes shops like New Look and Next have gone and others are going. We don't have a cinema any more, some of the restaurants and cafes have closed and we used to have a lovely shoe shop but that's gone too. There just isn't many places to go and shop these days.
Golden Scissors Barber shop on Harrow Road in Westminster, London. The district has one premises for every 323 residents, with Kensington and Chelsea having one for every 517 In Stoke Newington, a village-like area of Hackney, there are 11 barber shops along a one mile stretch of road, the majority being Turkish.
Meanwhile, Stokey Barber's at the top of the road, has changed hands over the years and prior to that was an internet cafe. Gino's barber shop in nearby Church Street has witnessed first-hand the surge in demand for haircuts. 'People always mention money laundering, but it is very easy to launder money in all sorts of businesses, and it is unfair to judge everyone the same because not everyone is like that.
'But when you've only got a population of 1,000 or so people, and a load of barber shops, it might go into the darker side of things.' Julian Korosec who runs independent locksmith GK Locks added: 'Everything has changed in the last three or four years. It used to be very cosmopolitan; you would have a mix of everything on the high street. Cinemas, a woodwork shop and your Sainsbury's. Some shops might be used as fronts but it's not my job to know, I'm sure there is but I am certainly not aware of any.'
One woman who lives in the area told MailOnline: 'There doesn't seem to be many women's hairdressers here, but for men, all they need to do is walk a few steps and they land in one. A lifelong resident said: 'I've not noticed a big uptake in barbers, salons and hairdressers. The barbers I've noticed seem to have always been there, maybe a few have come and gone but a lot of them have been refurbished.
National Crime Agency officers saw the former builder and window cleaner, and two other men, leave his barber's shop with extendable ladders and walk along the seafront to the Port of Sheerness where he and an accomplice scaled the fence. Another case which highlighted the dubious nature of some barber shops was that of Hewa Rahimpur, 30, and his gang of fellow Iranian Kurds who ran a huge people smuggling ring before his arrest in 2022.
MailOnline found that a barber with two shops who was jailed for six years for transporting £1m worth of cocaine from Liverpool to Manchester has now started cutting hair again on his release from prison. Jabarkhel, 33, had offered to pay £2,500 to lorry drivers for each person smuggled in from France or Belgium, but he fled to Kabul, Afghanistan, after realising that police were watching him in 2020.
Read More Short, back and bribes! London barber is exposed as crime boss behind cross-Channel people-smuggling operation after offering truckers up to £2,500 per illegal immigrant carried into UK Both men claimed the money was to buy barbering equipment, but the authorities had been monitoring their mobile phones and text messages and knew their explanation was false.
The barber, who lived above his salon in Hammersmith, boasted to a prison visitor while on remand awaiting trial that he had actually managed to transfer £25,000 to alleged Islamic State supporters he was financing.
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