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Camden’s Cabinet, on Wednesday 28 February, agreed to approve, adopt and implement a strategy and action plan for the Evening and Night-Time in Camden.

The strategy establishes a vision to make Camden a welcoming, safe and inclusive place to spend time in the evening and night-time.

Key recommendations of the strategy include:

• Create an evening and night panel for Camden.
• Work with local business groups to promote family friendly and inclusive, non-alcohol-led experiences in the early evening.
• Promote recreation and wellbeing in the evening and night-time and use meanwhile opportunities to create safe, fun and inclusive recreational resources.
• Develop a business rates discount scheme to support grassroots music venues and Camden's cultural legacy.
• Implement a Licensing Charter to complement our Statement of Licensing Policy, setting standards of best practice and incentivising good management in the evening and night-time.
• Investing more money in cleaning of high streets at night and increasing the coordination of how we manage night-time hotspots.
• Pilot night and evening markets.

The strategy also reinforces our key objective to address issues relating to the experiences of women travelling through the borough, particularly at night, to make them feel safer in Camden and to ensure that if they do suffer harassment or abuse, there are resources available to them to report these incidents.

It also takes into consideration the recommendations of our Diversity in the Public Realm Strategy by seeking to promote inclusion and bring new audiences into the public realm and to use services and access culture at night.

We undertook extensive public engagement between October 2022 to March 2023, reaching around 1,600 people either through feedback on our Commonplace website or attending one of eight area-based or thematic workshops which gathered insight on the evening and night-time.

We also held a Citizens Assembly to help develop the strategy with residents, visitors, night-workers and businesses. The assemblies were focussed on ways of improving Camden at night and ways to support local businesses to thrive.

Camden’s evening and late-night economy is the UK’s sixth largest, with 113,700 jobs, and attracts visitors to areas including Camden Town and Covent Garden.

The borough is home to seven per cent of London’s key cultural venues, including music venues Koko and the Electric Ballroom, and the Etcetera Theatre in Camden High Street.

Last week, at a full council meeting at Camden Council, we discussed how our evening and night-time offer must adapt to survive and thrive. A key part of this was reviewing the findings of the Citizen Assembly, which took place earlier this year to examine this issue.

Our neighbouring borough Westminster have launched a consultation platform on their proposal to create an inclusive Evening and Night-time Plan to improve the night-time scene in Westminster. As part this, Westminster City Council is hosting an Evening and Night-time Stakeholder Assembly. The Assembly will be a space where residents, businesses, and visitors can come together to share their perspectives, ideas, and concerns.

The Assembly sessions will take place on Saturday 27th January, 3rd February and 10th February 2024 between around 10 am – 4pm in a central Westminster location. Individuals that take part will receive a gift of thanks worth £250.

'Let's make the evening and night-time experience in Westminster even better, together!'

We would like to thank everyone who took part in our citizens’ assembly for their commitment and colossal efforts.

For the 46 assembly members, selected at random to broadly reflect our borough’s diversity, it was an intense yet empowering experience. Here’s just a few thoughts they shared with us:

“I always considered myself an isolated individual. Now I feel that my voice is important and can positively impact change”

“As a grass roots music venue operator, I feel valued, recognised and listened to”

“It was nice to see that getting citizens’ involved was genuine and to see how different voices have been heard and taken onboard throughout the process”

“I finally feel like a hopeful citizen of Camden”

During the sessions assembly members heard evidence, deliberated, and formed a vision, set principles, recommendations, calls to action, and measures of success for the Council, partners and business operating in the evening and night-time and others living and working in the evening and night-time in Camden.

Over the last two Saturdays, a cross-section of people who live, work or run a business in Camden have been giving their time and energy as ‘participants’ in our Citizens’ Assembly, to help shape Camden’s first Evening and Night-Time Economy Strategy. Participants have had the chance to share their thoughts and experiences, listen to other perspectives and learn from others.

We have had a fantastic response to our call for expressions of interest in our Evening and Night-Time Citizens’ Assembly. As we near the closing date, it seems like a good time to answer some questions you may have:

What is a Citizens Assembly?

A citizens’ assembly is a group of people who are brought together to discuss an issue or issues and then reach a conclusion about what they think should happen. The people who take part are chosen so they reflect the wider population, including demographics like age, gender, ethnicity.

As we start 2023, we are delighted by the number of respondents to our Commonplace survey. It has been great hearing about the places you love and what could be improved. Many thanks to all who have contributed so far.

A Citizens’ Assembly is a way of involving a representative group of citizens to learn about, consider and make recommendations about a particular issue or set of issues.

We are looking for Assembly participants to develop a vision for the future of Camden’s evening and night-time and how the Council, businesses and Camden’s communities could achieve it.

If you are a Camden resident, a business owner or you work in Camden and are aged 16 or over, you can now register your interest in taking part.

The Citizens’ Assembly will be held on:

• Saturday 18 February 2023

• Saturday 25 February 2023

• Saturday 4 March 2023

Each day will last from approximately 9:30am – 4:30pm and be held at an accessible venue in Camden.

To thank participants for taking part in all 3 days of the Assembly, we are offering a gift of thanks, either as cash or a voucher worth £250.

Camden is home to 7,000 businesses that work after 6pm, including those within the arts, hospitality, and leisure sectors. These businesses employ around 100,000 people and make nearly £1billion yearly.

We want to help the existing evening and night time economy here in Camden by supporting local businesses, creating better job opportunities and greater benefits for the community.

We will be holding engagement events across Camden and would love your contribution at one of our community events.