MAKE NEWS
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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…
One of the most exciting emerging areas in the development of the evening and night-time economy has been the global rise in light festivals. The pioneer in this area, and still the standard by which all others are judged, is Lyon’s annual Fêtes des Lumières (and it’s no surprise that Lyon has 100% satisfaction with its cultural provision – the only city in Europe to have that; Perucca 2019)…
Back in 2018 the owners of hugely respected Shoreditch live venue and club space Village Underground proposed a new venue in an old art deco cinema in Dalston, Hackney. The challenge faced by both the council and the operators was that it was within Hackney’s own Dalston Special Policy Area. MAKE was asked to undertake an objective assessment of the venue’s likely impact on crime and disorder, nuisance and safety…
MAKE has been evaluating the Soho Angels ‘safe space’ project led by Westminster City Council and the LGBT Foundation. It is the most comprehensive project of its kind in the UK. Over the past year the scheme has helped over a thousand people, from those who have had too much to drink and those who have been assaulted or robbed, as well as those who are lost and vulnerable in London’s most iconic nightlife hotspot…
In 2019 there was considerable outrage from a number of quarters (and a legal challenge) at Hackney Council’s decision to extend its Shoreditch Special Policy Area (or Cumulative Impact Zone. (NB. Cumulative Impact Zones are a policy tool that make it more difficult to get an alcohol / food / entertainment licence in areas suffering from crime and disorder, nuisance etc)…
MAKE founder, Alistair, was asked to talk on the opening panel at this year’s Mannheim. It was both a great honour and amazing fun. The conference had the best mix of speakers and professional organisation of any event that we have attended in over 20 years in our field of after dark cities…
MAKE was once asked by a major leisure company to gather evidence of crime patterns and lack of enforcement of poor-quality licensed venues by the authorities responsible for London’s West End (they felt that they were getting a raw deal as their venues were all run properly). Westminster City Council, the local authority area in which much of the West End sits, was well known for its blanket refusal to grant new or extended licensed venues…
MAKE led a Purple Flag brainstorming workshop for Ipswich. We brought together the widest range of stakeholders with an interest in the city’s evening and night-time economy (NTE). The outcomes of the day (where we set out to challenge everyone from the chief constable to café owners) were used as part of the town’s application to Purple Flag…
One of Mary Portas’ recommendations, in her review of town centres and the high street commissioned by the then Prime Minster, was to have a day when the whole country celebrated the importance, diversity and excitement that markets bring to their communities. The result was ‘Love Your Local Market’ - an events campaign supported by the National Association of British Market Authorities (NABMA) at over 300 markets nationally…
MAKE is increasingly advising the private sector on the night-time economy, licensing and the future of town and city centres. Recently we gave a presentation to Business In Sport & Leisure, the body representing a large number of the UK’s leisure and sporting companies. MAKE highlighted some of its newest NightMix figures showing the recovery from the recession on the UK night-time economy (and those places that have never recovered)…
An increasingly critical part of managing the night-time economy is the creation of benchmarks to measure progress. Like the cliché goes: if you can’t measure, you can’t manage. Most people haven’t yet got to grips with this, but with MAKE being the first to advocate the ongoing evaluation of your local night-time economy, we were pleased to be asked to devise a new toolkit for local coordinators of the successful Pubwatch scheme…
MAKE is undertaking what we believe is the very first UK study into gambling crime and disorder around betting shops or LBOs (Licensed betting offices). Working on behalf of a London council we are using a mixture of ethnographic observation and crime mapping to understand what problems are associated with the LBOs (licensed betting offices) in the borough…
Having completed a global first (the Cost Benefit Analysis of a world city night-time economy) on behalf of the Mayor and City of Sydney Council, we are pleased to see that our work continues to be put to good use.
As part of the city’s world leading approach to regenerating its night-time economy (London and New York have has since learned much), Sydney has now gone to the next level and set out repairing the damage caused by the lockout laws - laying out a comprehensive ENTE plan…
Despite its technical title, MAKE’s ‘Design out Crime’ project for Liverpool (acknowledged as the most holistic night-time economy strategy yet conceived) addressed everything from lighting and public space design to the leisure mix, urban governance, licensee relations and measuring change in the city after dark…
Best Bar None is a national scheme operating in over 80 UK town centres and whose mission is to improve standards in licensed premises and drive trade to those venues that take the customer experience and safety seriously.
We have been asked to create a ‘toolkit’ to help local Best Bar None schemes identify the impact of their scheme on crime reduction, reducing hospital admissions and improving footfall and turnover…
