A vibrant and distinctive night scene represents a significant prize for local areas keen to boost economic growth while nurturing cultural diversity and social cohesion.
The night-time sector contributes £153bn a year to the economy and employs 2.1 million people – predominantly those under 30 – but its benefits go beyond this.
According to Michael Kill, chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, a thriving night-time economy has the power to transform lives as well as balance sheets.
“The unseen value is the impact on shaping communities, the impact on physical, social and mental wellbeing,” he says.
However, he warns that its potential is being stunted by a punishing taxation system and a lack of action to support night-time businesses.
“The government has got to recognise we’re not a cash cow and, at some point, the [weight of] taxes is going to lay so heavily on industry that we’re going to see a greater loss than gain,” he says.
Despite a “a lot of virtue signalling”, Kill sees little evidence of a commitment to the night economy from local or national government.
He describes the regulatory framework for planning and licensing as “restrictive, onerous, barrier-driven and fear-driven”.
“We talk about a 24-hour economy and 24-hour licensing but we don’t have 24-hour cities in terms of infrastructure or safety,” says Kill.
According to Carly Heath, night-time economy adviser for Bristol, the night-time economy is often misunderstood as simply comprising pubs, clubs and “students falling out of kebab shops at 3am”.
In fact, businesses operating between 6pm and 6am employ over 116,000 people – 41% of all jobs in Bristol, she says.
Most of those roles relate to health and social care, logistics, transportation, call centres and late night retail – the very people recognised during the pandemic as part of the foundational economy.
They are among the lowest-paid workers in the city, often young or from marginalised communities, whose working environments may be inherently insecure.
“Once you start thinking about the night and the sort of people that need to traverse the city after dark, then you start exposing all the barriers that are created through policymakers that live in the 9 to 5,” she says.
“My job is to be the ambassador for the city from 6pm to 6am… I ask the prickly questions about what happens when the sun goes down.”
Enterprise Zones
High streets fighting back
At the end of 2022, Bromley, Vauxhall and Woolwich were chosen as London’s new night-time enterprise zones after a successful pilot on Walthamstow High Street.
Each was handed a £130,000 grant to become more welcoming after dark, encouraging more residents and visitors to use their local high streets.
Bromley’s programme included a series of events under the BR1 Lates banner, which brought music, street food, sports and interactive light displays to the high street and underused spaces including Bromley Central Library.
The Vauxhall zone featured cinema and karaoke, night food and art markets while Woolwich used its funding to run family friendly activities, open mic nights and sporting events.
According to the Greater London Authority, the initiative showed the potential to more than double footfall between 6pm and midnight on local high streets.
Average local spend during events increased by up to 70% from 6pm to 9pm compared to the same dates in 2022, while over two thirds of those surveyed said they felt safer when events were on.
“Most attendees said that places felt safer during events, [it] gave them the opportunity to experience something different, made them feel more positive about their areas, and would encourage them to visit again,” the GLA said.
Unsafe streets
Heath chairs Bristol Nights, a partnership that has seen the council work closely with the city’s business improvement districts, university and charities to promote a safe, secure and dynamic night economy.
She believes that where councils have taken a more restrictive approach to the kind of activity they want to see after dark, it has fuelled the demise of a thriving night-time environment.
Far from making urban areas safer, creating deserts with “no eyes on the ground” contributes to the perception of danger, particularly for women walking alone after dark.
“If we’re not planning for how to create better urban environments after dark, then no amount of controlling licensed activity is going to solve the safety conundrum,” says Heath.
Understandably, many councils view the night economy through the lens of the complaints they receive from residents and the administrative burden of licensing and planning permissions.
“My perception of night life is as the gathering places where we actually create joy,” she says.
“Among some communities, night life really is a safe space – a place to lose yourself, to find yourself, to find your tribe; it’s a place for identity exploration, for wellbeing or even just the simple essence of breaking bread.
“They are our gathering moments.”
For Sacha Lord, entrepreneur and former night-time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, the reason the sector does not attract the recognition it deserves comes down to “absolute naivety” about the role it plays.
“The people at the top who are making the decisions sit behind their desks all week and see going to the pub as just going for a pint and letting your hair down,” he says.
“My grandad, when he lost my grandma, would finish work and at 6pm go to the local pub after work and sit there – it wasn’t great for the landlord because he’d sit with the same pint for two hours, but he’d see his mates.
“Take that away and he’d just be sat in his front lounge watching TV with no social activity at all.”
Nurturing the night
But how best to nurture the night-time economy within local areas has proven a sensitive issue.
London’s first ‘night czar’, Amy Lamé, stepped down in October 2024 following criticism that after the fanfare of her 2016 appointment by mayor Sadiq Khan she had achieved little for the capital’s struggling night scene to justify her generous City Hall salary.
In Greater Manchester, a different model was put in place, with Lord serving as unpaid adviser to mayor Andy Burnham supported by a commission made up of industry representatives which met once a month.
Lord strongly believes that to safeguard independence and the ability to challenge, the night-time adviser should not be a paid role.
“I was given the freedom to say and do exactly what I felt under Andy Burnham – and I think if it’s your sole job you have to be quite careful what you say and do,” he says.
He gives the example of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme the government ran in August 2020 to encourage diners to return to restaurants during the pandemic, over which he and the mayor had differing opinions.
At the time, Lord championed the scheme as a vital lifeline for hospitality businesses, despite Burnham believing the money would be better spent elsewhere.
“I get where he was coming from 110% but it was my job to fight for that money to go into my sector,” he says.
Kill agrees that for a night-time adviser to carry out the role effectively, autonomy is non-negotiable.
“It’s very difficult for you to criticise if you’re an employee of the mayor,” he says.
While there had been a lot of “pointy fingers” over Lamé’s performance, the reality was that the structure in which she operated was not sufficiently robust to allow her to challenge decisions and take the industry with her, says Kill.
Taskforce approach
He sees the way forward as local commissions made up of night economy representatives along the lines of Berlin’s Clubcommission.
“You’re going to get more bang for your buck out of 10 people in a room [and] the buy-in in terms of representation is going to be greater because you’re going to have a broader spectrum of people sat round the table,” he says.
That approach is now being pursued in London with the establishment of a nightlife taskforce, as well as in the West Midlands, where a group of industry voices is being set up to thrash out proposals to protect and revitalise the region’s night-time economy.
Internationally, a governance model gaining traction is the idea of an office at city or regional level dedicated to the promotion of a safe and diverse night-time economy.
Philip Kolvin, a licensing barrister and chair of London’s former Night Time Commission, says the model has an impressive international track record.
He gives the example of Sydney, whose well-resourced nightlife function has had an “immense” impact on the world’s view of the city as a night-time destination.
“It’s gone from the bottom of the pile to pretty much the top as a place to visit,” he says.
In his view, London rushed to appoint its night czar without a clear expectation of what the role would involve – something which he admits, at a salary of over £120,000, makes him queasy.
“The problem with that was that no one had really asked themselves ‘what is it exactly that we’re asking this person to do?’,” he says.
An Office for Nightlife, one that sits within a combined authority, would be able to promote and advocate for the night-time economy by working with local authorities, the police, tourism agencies and cultural bodies.
“What I like about the Office for Nightlife is that it demonstrates serious intent,” he says.
“It’s not just ‘hey, we’ve got a night mayor, look how cool we are’ because I can guarantee you will achieve nothing from that.”
Kolvin believes the preservation of the night-time economy, and the wider economic, social and cultural benefits it delivers, is now an urgent consideration.
He contrasts the state’s hands-on approach when it comes to promoting ‘high culture’ or major sporting events with its willingness to leave the health of the night economy in the hands of local entrepreneurs.
“It’s because all this happens ‘below the radar’, it’s as though it’s not the concern of government – but culture and youth should be the concern of government,” he says.
There is a “real danger” that the distinctive venues that once characterised the culture of the UK are lost in the ever growing homogenisation of town centres.
“We invented pubs, [and] nightclubs are a huge part of our history – just think how much of the grassroots music scene has come out of gritty, grimy back streets and basements,” he says.
He also sees the night-time economy as critical to stemming our descent into an “atomised, individualised, fragmented” society where people no longer go out in groups and meet others who are different from them.
“It’s not just a question of culture; it’s a question of the preservation of community in our society,” he says.
For Heath, it is the “palms and arms” moments, the fleeting joy of a crowd throwing up their arms in rapture, that define everything she is trying to protect.
“That’s what we are meant to do, that’s the essence of our humanity,” she says.
“I keep that in my heart and make sure I’m looking after the people who create those moments and reflect their reality.”
Research
Data after dark
Greater Manchester and the West Midlands are to gain definitive insights into their night-time economies as part of an innovative data project.
The scheme will see the combined authorities for both regions work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Office for National Statistics to improve analysis of after dark activity.
Thanks to a £300,000 grant from the Treasury’s Economic Data Innovation Fund, new standard industrial classification codes will be created for businesses associated with the night-time economy, yielding better data to inform economic policy.
The cash will also fund the development of a data model to track the night-time economy in regions across the UK, as well as an AI tool to identify trends within successful planning applications relating to businesses operating after dark.
“A crucial part of our work is to deliver bespoke projects to fill local data gaps – such as on the important topic of the night-time economy,” said Becky Tinsley, local lead for the ONS.
“Close working with other bodies enables local information and expertise to be combined with granular data to maximise analytical insight, leading to better decision making locally.”