Night Vision: Rebuilding London’s Night-Time Economy

London's night-time economy fully re-opened on 19 July 2021, following 16 months of closures for parts of the sector and social distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

The London Assembly Economy Committee launched an investigation into the sector's recovery following uncertainty about how surviving businesses can return to and exceed pre-pandemic levels of activity.

The report Night Vision: Rebuilding London’s Night-Time Economy makes the following recommendations:

• Recommendation 1: The Mayor should set and publish targets on how many additional workers from the hospitality sector will be trained and helped into good-quality work as part of the Mayor’s Academies Programme.
• Recommendation 2: Hospitality and creative hubs within the Mayor’s Academies Programme should prioritise skills provision in areas where there is a particular shortage, including door security and certain technical roles in the creative industries. The Mayor needs to work with industry to identify where these shortages are when providing skills to help Londoners into work.
• Recommendation 3: The Mayor should work alongside employers and skills providers to improve perceptions and working conditions of jobs such as door supervisors and other roles in hospitality, in order to encourage more people to enter the sector. The Mayor, employers and providers should also work to improve the attractiveness of these jobs, ensuring they provide good quality work and that there are progression opportunities in the sector, including through the Skills Academy hubs.
• Recommendation 4: The Mayor and Central Government should work together to ensure the UK’s new visa and immigration system following the UK leaving the EU is working in the right way to address London’s skills and labour shortages in the night time economy.
• Recommendation 5: The London Recovery Programme should include a strategy for supporting the night-time economy to build back from the pandemic. It should also explain how the success of this support will be measured.
• Recommendation 6: The Mayor should demonstrate what measurable impact the Women’s Night Safety Charter has had since its implementation, and set out an action plan to increase the number of organisations signed up to the Charter.
• Recommendation 7: The Mayor should set out what action he is taking to improve safety for all groups in the context of the night-time economy.
• Recommendation 8: The Mayor and TfL should set out an appropriate timetable to ensure that the rest of the night tube returns as soon as is feasibly possible, given its importance to the recovery of the night-time economy, particularly in relation to feelings of personal safety. They should also provide as much notice as possible about this, to enable night-time economy businesses to plan for its return.
• Recommendation 9: The Mayor and London Councils should work with Central Government to review London’s licensing arrangements, to ensure that schemes work for both businesses and residents. This work should be undertaken this winter to allow plans to be put in place in time for summer 2022.
• Recommendation 10: The Mayor should work with local authorities to investigate the feasibility of meanwhile use of vacant premises for night-time businesses and events.
• Recommendation 11: There needs to be clear and consistent messaging from the Mayor and the Government going forwards about the safety of London’s night-time industries in relation to COVID-19, in order to help rebuild confidence in the sector.
• Recommendation 12: The Mayor and Central Government should do more to celebrate and promote London’s night-time economy. The night-time economy should be seen as central to future domestic and international tourism campaigns. This should include the Mayor’s future promotional activity once the Let’s Do London campaign has concluded.