The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), an advocacy group which represents and lobbies on behalf of pubs, bars, clubs, and music venues, has released a manifesto it hopes will help shape policy-makers’ treatment of the sector next year.
The manifesto, called ‘Darkest Before The Dawn‘ (making it sound like the sort of poem I wrote as a wistful teenager), has been created by King’s Counsel Philip Kolvin in collaboration with a bunch of industry stakeholders, and includes a comprehensive roadmap of 44 recommendations designed to assist venues and businesses within towns, cities and regions across the UK.
Darkest Before The Dawn is a weighty document, but the gist of it is simple – rather than viewing pubs, bars, clubs, and music venues as simply the target of legislation and control, policy makers should view the sector as a vital economic and cultural asset which should be nurtured and protected, a sentiment anyone who visits this website is likely to get behind.
As the NTIA describe it: “The manifesto requires policy-makers to measure up to the systemic challenges faced by independent businesses in the nighttime industry and the wider cultural landscape, from rising business rates, high levels of VAT, crippling energy costs, commodity prices, labour shortages and reduction in consumer spending power.“
Sacha Lord, Night Time Economy Advisor for Greater Manchester, adds: “Coming out of the pandemic, the NTIA has consistently been the leading voice for the night time industry recovery. This manifesto should be treated as the bible for our industry. For the first time ever, a document has been compiled by industry leaders to help both form and create the industry’s future. I’d strongly urge politicians from all parties, local authorities and decision makers not only to read this manifesto but to adopt it.”
If you would like to read the manifesto, you can download it from the NTIA website by clicking here.