Should Sadiq Khan decline to run for a fourth term as London mayor, his contribution to public life will largely have been stoking the culture war. From spaffing European symbols over the New Year’s fireworks to funding bemusing anti-misogyny campaigns, the public messaging has been relentless, if little else has.
And yet there’s another cultural battleground on which the London mayor may achieve more than progressive bromides. In recent weeks, Khan has opened a front against that scourge of the modern capital: central London’s frustratingly well-organised Nimbys.
The latest skirmish is being fought on the streets of Soho, London’s historic shagging quarter. Sources close to Khan are claiming that the mayor will use his new powers to overrule local objections to al fresco dining in the area, bringing it back next summer in earnest for the first time since the plague years.
As Khan commented after the latest run-in with Soho’s Nimbys, complaining about nightlife when you choose to live in Soho is like living in South Kensington and complaining about the museums
Blockers on Westminster City Council neglected to apply for Khan’s Summer Streets project, a £500,000 bung to encourage councils to promote outdoor eating and drinking. Nighttime revellers will be forced to head to glamorous alternatives in, um, Lewisham, Lambeth and my own hometown of Sutton.
That is, unless Khan has his way. New licensing powers allow the mayor to call in certain decisions, while also granting him access to more consultations, formal representations and a city-wide strategic licensing policy – whatever that means.
All this would be a blow against the anti-fun lobby who run The Soho Society. Not content with occupying some of the primest real estate in Europe, these residents’ favourite kink is to veto any nighttime entertainment more exuberant than a game of tiddlywinks.
In May, the society voted at its AGM for a new licensing policy which will see the group challenge all new bar and restaurant applications, renewals of existing licences and attempts to stay open beyond 11pm, when the party in many British cities outside of London is just getting started.
It’s the latest escalation by the Soho puritans, who have been causing misery for years as they smother hospitality businesses in legal wrangling and the kinds of strictures usually self-imposed by OCD sufferers. Only last year, they sought to block the licence for The Green Room, a gin bar and distillery, contesting Westminster’s decision to grant the bar a licence over fire safety concerns.
This effort failed. But while the society was slapped with £27,500 of costs – reduced because a higher bill would have bankrupted it – that only partially covered the expenses of The Green Room, which argued it should not be ‘required to pick up the tab for the Soho Society’s failed attempt’. One local bar owner, who is a member of the society but feels unable to vote against its interventions, called its tactics ‘mafia-like’.
The society claims to not be inherently opposed to the night-time economy, but the cumulative impact of its interventions suggests otherwise. Indeed, its chair Tim Lord told WestminsterExtra last year that the ‘primary purpose’ of the alleged charity was planning and licensing.
As Khan commented after the latest run-in with Soho’s Nimbys, ‘complaining about nightlife when you choose to live in Soho is like living in South Kensington and complaining about the museums.’
Yet London’s Nimby infestation isn’t confined to Soho. In May a local Nimby sought to shut down the Brockwell Live music events near Brixton, before suffering defeat in the High Court. The year before, a similar campaign had convinced a court that Lambeth Council had blocked off sections of the park for too long for the festivals. Ironically, the only casualty thus far has been the Lambeth Country Show, a free event axed this year over lack of funds.
Park enjoyers are now fighting a multi-front battle against the music industry, raising objections in Victoria Park, host of All Points East and LIDO, and Gunnersbury Park, where several music events have had to find alternative venues this year over planning issues. That’s without counting the many pubs and small venues that now face punitive restrictions on holding live music or allowing their punters to drink outside.
Khan must crush these joyless Nimbys, whether in Soho, Brixton or Hackney. Though they’ll claim it’s for want of sleep, these people are just tired of London and perhaps of life. That doesn’t mean the rest of us must go gentle in our quest for a good night out.
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