Councils are reportedly planning to shut down strip clubs by using new strict laws.

According to the Sun, town halls across Britain are at varying stages of implementing the licensing laws to force the clubs to close. At least 10 councils have already selected "nil" policies, which will automatically reject applications for any new venues. However, the deciding elements include closeness to schools, places of worship and housing areas.

The Tower Hamlets Council in East London is awaiting the outcome of a public discussion on closing 11 clubs in the borough. The council said that these clubs were situated in unsuitable locations, reported Daily Mail.

Three lap dancing clubs were denied licenses in Leicester and the strict rules in London could prevent the only strip club in the city from applying for a licence.

"Putting a nil limit is part of ensuring the safety of women. It's part of a council's responsibility. It's an issue of local democracy," Anna van Heeswijk of the feminist pressure group, Object, was quoted as saying by The Sun.

In October, the government spent £100,000 to finance a study into the effect of lap dancing clubs on communities. The author of the study, Phil Hubbard of the University of Kent, was quoted as saying by the Times: "The sex industry will never go away. Even pressure that's pushed it back has never made it go away. The fact that people find it distasteful doesn't mean you can criminalise it."

He said a mechanism was formed for strip clubs under which in "some areas it will be legal and not others".

Britain has at least 300 venues and many other opened after an amendment in the licensing law in 2003, which created a "loophole" providing a room for clubs to be launched just like café or karaoke bar with little option, reported The Sun.

However, in 2009, the law redesigned strip clubs, pole dancing and "sex-entertainment venues" - just like sex shops and adult cinemas, allowing councils to have new controls.

Enfield Council in North London, which has banned the clubs regardless of never having had any, passed the slogan saying "no sex please, we're Enfield." It stated that it wouldn't welcome any new venues.

London