Hackney Council Withdraws 2016 Licensing Proposal

The future of East London nightlife remains in the balance as Hackney Council has decided to postpone its decision on late night licensing.

Emma Plouviez, chair of Hackney’s licensing committee has released this statement. 

“Unfortunately there was a minor error in the published consultation document. Although this was not related to the part of the consultation affecting nightclub opening hours, which is what we know has caused the most concern, we want to ensure that everyone who takes the time to respond to any council consultation can have confidence that they did so with the full facts. 

We needed to decide whether to correct the mistake and extend the current consultation, or take the opportunity to take a step back and re-consult on a new draft policy that we hope both residents and businesses will be able to support. Hackney’s creative and night time economy is famous worldwide and brings valuable investment and employment into the borough, but first and foremost Hackney is a place for people to live. Balancing the needs of the night time economy with the rights of our residents to live in a peaceful and safe environment is one of the biggest challenges facing our borough. 

We want to reach a resolution that does just this, so we’re going to be asking residents and businesses to join in an open discussion on where we go from here. We have already met with residents and business groups, but it’s clear we need to listen further to all voices and opinions, and we plan to host a debate on this later in the autumn. We hope that residents, visitors and businesses will join us to help shape a licensing policy for Hackney, which everyone can understand and get behind.”

The original draft stated that Shoreditch and Dalston had reached “saturation point” and that those areas are and are “losing the balance between the rights of residents and the rights of businesses.” This attracted criticism from clubbers and venue owners over its description of nightclubs as “not considered appropriate” for the borough, along with proposals for bars and clubs to shut at 11pm.