Later opening London… How to MAKE London Work for All

At MAKE we’ve been arguing for over a decade that there needs to be a much greater understanding of the costs and benefits of opening towns and cities later into the evening and at night. Finally, someone agrees with us… the Mayor of London no less. 

On this commission, we are working with our colleagues at economists Hatch-Regeneris (who we completed the world’s first night-time spatial planning document for). Together, we have been asked to provide the GLA with a model that boroughs in London (and indeed anywhere in the UK or worldwide) can use to evaluate the potential of their centres and neighbourhoods to open services later. 

Critically, because the Mayor’s current research programme is about a holistic view of the 24-hour city, not just the leisure-based night-time economy - something we have criticised before, our work will be examining all aspects of extending the city at night. This means from pubs to doctors’ surgeries, transport to theatres; hairdressers to nightclubs, shops to council services.  

In principle, there could be many benefits of opening later– greater activation of public spaces, diversification of evening users in town centres, better programming of arts venues, greater viability of businesses to name just a few. But there are also possible costs of later opening London – staffing, policing, ambulance, street cleansing, noise insulation. And what about those who have to work longer hours? 

We’ll post more here when the research comes to fruition in mid-2020.  

For more information on later opening research and developing a later opening strategy, click the button below…