'Counterfeit Street' is looking at a brighter future

Huge crackdown has seen hundreds of shops shut down in crime-ridden road.

- DAMON WILKINSON

SAQIB Hayat is remembering what Bury New Road used to be like.

Rubbish piled in the alleys, fighting, drug dealing, women scared to walk the streets. Now though, he says things are different.

"It's much better," said Saqib, 25, whose business AS Mobiles has been on Bury New Road since 2017. "There's no criminals in the street harassing women. It's much cleaner.

"People used to be scared to get their phones out in case they got robbed.

They say it was like that for 35 years. I don't know why they didn't do anything sooner." It's been two years since police and the council launched a huge crackdown on Manchester's notorious 'Counterfeit Street. Dubbed Operation Vulcan, it's seen more than 200 knockoff shops closed down, 238 people arrested and more than 1,000 tonnes of counterfeit clothing confiscated.

Hundreds of thousands of dodgy vapes have also been destroyed and more than 2m class C drugs - predominantly painkillers and antidepressants such as pregabalin and diazepam have been seized from what was the epicentre of the north's trade in illicit medication.