London Night Czar Amy Lamé on boosting the city’s economic and social recovery

Last week, London Night Czar, Amy Lamé revealed details of the city’s new Night Time Enterprise Zones – a new campaign running in Bromley, Vauxhall, and Woolwich aimed at boosting high streets after 6pm. Headliner sat down with her to discuss the new scheme, as well as how the city’s night time economy is coping with the cost of living crisis.

It’s been a tumultuous six years for Amy Lamé. The writer, performer, presenter and former venue manager was appointed by Mayor Of London Sadiq Khan as the city’s first ever Night Czar in 2016, with the task of helping to make London a 24 hour city with a thriving and prosperous night time economy. Since then, she’s had to deal with the knock-on effects of Brexit, Covid, a revolving door at 10 Downing Street, and a cost of living crisis.

Despite these towering challenges, she has still helped to deliver significant wins for the city, such as the night tube, increased opening hours for businesses of all shapes and sizes, protecting some of the most vulnerable grassroots and LGBTQ+ venues during their most challenging times, and improving data around women’s safety and night time wages for workers.

Her latest initiative is London’s Night Time Enterprise Zones – a £500,000 project rolling out across three areas designed to inspire growth in their respective economies.

Here, she shares her hopes for the new scheme, and fills us in on the current state of affairs for London after dark….

Tells us about the new London Night time Enterprise Zones. What do they entail and what impact do you expect them to have?

I’m really excited that last week were able to announce the Night Time Enterprise Zones. This is to enable boroughs to help more people use their high streets after 6pm and to help boost the local economy. The programme means that we can work in partnership with local boroughs, try out new ideas, test innovative solutions, help councils and communities and businesses to work together to make our high streets more accessible, more inclusive, more welcoming and more prosperous after dark.

We initially ran a pilot scheme in Waltham Forest in 2019, and through that we encouraged extended opening times, special events, big promotions and we repurposed some council owned buildings to open up an open mic venue for local young people, and all of this increased footfall by 22%, increased feelings of safety for people on the high street at night, and also diversified the people out and about at night. That was particularly the case for families and older people who may have felt ‘that’s not for me’. We opened the library later, extended opening times for cafes, put on street markets at night. It’s about our economic recovery but also our social recovery. That pilot informed the programme we’ve just launched.

The three locations taking part in this campaign are very different places and will all have their own unique approach, but the common thread is that all those areas need a bit of a boost post 6pm.

Why did you choose these particular locations? And will you look to roll this out further?

I would very much like that to happen. The interest in this programme was exceptionally high, which tells us that areas around London want to boost their high streets at night. Over half of all local authorities applied for the funding. Back in 2019, before the pandemic, we needed this, and we need it even more now.

All three of these locations are very different and very community focused. So, the bid in Vauxhall was about building on the LGBTQ+ history of that area, which has quite a late night economy around pubs and clubs, but how do you expand that into the earlier evening, and connect that with the vibrant Portuguese community on South Lambeth Road, which is only a walk away, but can sometimes feel a bit disconnected?

With Woolwich, you have Woolwich Works and that whole new development and the traditional high street, which are cut off from each other, so we are looking at connecting those two parts of the town centre by animating the space and encouraging people who may only want one area to visit the other. It’s about sharing and building on what’s already there and finding innovative ways of connecting people.

What kind of impact do you hope this will have specifically on live music venues, bars and pubs?

Interestingly, Woolwich wants to become known as a place for lates, so this is part of their bid, to encourage people to come out later. It’s not just about saying stay out for a cup of tea after 6pm, it’s about stretching our hours on the high street, whatever that involves. In Vauxhall, it’s really quite busy there the later it gets, but perhaps people don’t think about going there for a meal before they go out clubbing or to see a live performance. It’s about trying to encourage people to add on to their activities and fully exploring everything the location has to offer. All of the individual elements will benefit the economy around the clock.

How supportive is the Mayor of London in not just this initiative, but also in boosting the night time economy as a whole?

The Mayor is incredibly committed to this work. He is funding this programme to the tune of £500,000. It’s a holistic approach that is integrated into everything we do together at City Hall. And he’s very vocal. He’s the first to go, ‘what is the latest with LGBTQ+ venues’?

And he’s my boss, so I want to make sure that he’s happy! But I also want to make sure I’m doing the best for London and for Londoners. And there is a lot of good news to tell. We’ve had a number of new venues open up, with Beams, Outernet, which has three venues within it, and we’ve had very productive discussions with Printworks, which is now looking very promising. This sector is so resilient, and I’m continually surprised buy its ability to keep jumping over whatever barriers it comes up against. It gives me a lot of energy, as I know how focused the sector is.

How are grassroots venues dealing with the cost of living crisis?

During Covid, we were able to fund our most vulnerable grassroots venues, LGBTQ+ venues, artist studios and independent cinemas. And we did not lose any LGBTQ+ venues during that period. So, I was very hopeful but, the energy crisis really is something else. Businesses just don’t have the protection that individual consumers have. And while the government has said it will keep a cap on things for businesses until April, but businesses need to plan, and if they can’t plan beyond April… couple that with the fact that this is supposed to be the golden period for a lot of venues, be they small or large, people are watching their pounds. It’s created a very difficult situation and it’s why the Mayor and I keep pressing the government to step up and tell us what is going to be happening after April and keep pressing for a bigger windfall tax.

How has the upheaval in government this year impacted your work?

We always stand ready to work with central government, whoever is leading the country. Those relationships are incredibly important for us at City Hall. It’s in London’s best interest to get round a table and talk about things. That’s been challenging over the past few months because of the changes. But we carry on, and it seems like things are stable for the moment, but you never know when you work in public service what is coming around the corner. We are just concentrating on doing the best for London.

One of the things we are working on at the moment is making London a living wage city - we know that if you work at night, you are twice as likely to earn less than the London living wage than someone doing the same job during the day. So a London Living Wage Taskforce has been setup, and I’m in the steering group for that, seeing everything through a nigh time lens to make sure that everybody who is working hard in London is getting paid fairly for that, regardless of what time of day or night.

What is currently giving you cause for optimism, and where are the biggest opportunities for London’s night time economy?

The night tube fully reopening has been great, as that unlocks a lot for night time businesses, so that was a very positive thing. It’s played a vital role in the city’s recovery. We are working really closely with boroughs to develop night time strategies to help businesses and locals to prosper at night, that’s going really well. We’re going to be boosting our data around night time policy – in the past I think people were making decisions based on opinion or perception, so we know how valuable that data is around safety and regulations. One of the biggest opportunities ahead is watching the Night Time Enterprise Zone grow and taking that learning and seeing where we can go with it next