Sir Sadiq Khan’s questionable previous “night czar” has actually begun a working as a consultant called 24hr Cities – although that London lost swathes of its nightclubs on her watch.
After stepping down last October, Amy Lam é currently provides herself as a founding supervisor of 24hr Cities on her LinkedIn, calling it a “global consultancy”.
It follows a deeply dissentious period helping Sir Sadiq, throughout which doubters said Ms Lam é had actually permitted London’s night life to deteriorate while taking home a significant income.
The New Jersey- birthed Ms Lam é was employed by Sadiq Khan to supervise the growth of London’s evening time economic situation in 2016. Seen as a noticeable ally of Sadiq Khan at City Hall, she was previously a Labour lobbyist and worked as mayoress of Camden.
Her LinkedIn account states: “As the first ever Night Czar for London and the first in the UK, I worked in partnership with stakeholders to ensure that London thrives as a 24-hour city, keeping it vibrant, safe, and diverse from 6pm to 6am.”
However, Ms Lam é was extensively criticised throughout her period for refraining from doing sufficient to stem the closure of swathes of bars, bars and dining establishments in the resources.
Approximately 3,000 of London’s nightclubs shut from 2020 to 2023, according to the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), while the variety of London bars, bars and bars to hold a 24-hour permit dived by greater than 2 thirds in 2023 and 2024 compared to the previous 2 years, going down from 183 to 58 according to a current BBC evaluation of Home Office information.
Draconian licensing regulations incorporated with skyrocketing expenses and clinically depressed customer investing have actually all been criticized for the decrease of London’s night life, in addition to the pandemic, which left numerous friendliness companies defending survival.
Last year social media sites customers used up the hashtag ‘LameLondon’ in demonstration, sharing images of vacant places and sparsely-populated roads. “No pints after 22:30. You cannot have any fun. T&Cs apply,” one poster created on X.
Questions have actually likewise been increased over the income paid to Ms Lam é. Though she began making ₤ 32,000-a-year for 2 and a fifty percent days function a week, by the time she surrendered she was being paid a ₤ 132,846 every year.
Defenders of her document have actually said that in spite of the top-level nature of the Night Czar function, it did not have considerable authority and enforcement powers, and indicated her function in the resuming of Fabric and safeguarding the future of location Printworks.
One sector resource stated: “I think the problem is that the role is almost an impossible role to do for anybody, whoever you are. The reasons why there are challenges surrounding late nights are not down to one politician or one set of Councilors.”
