Alan Miller: "We must ensure our clubs are not one incident away from closure"

This is why we need to have a common voice together: to keep saying to our Local Councillors up and down the country and to tell our MPs that represent us in Parliament how we feel about our clubs and why we want to see partnership with police and councils and not immediate punishment when issues arise, which they inevitably will do. I invite readers to sign the petition at Save Nightlife which sends a message to your local councillor. This is part of a wider strategy that involves working with City Hall, lobbying the Home Office around guidance for licensing and with DCMS, DCLG and other government representatives.

The Night Time Commission at City Hall and the new Night Czar are significant steps in the right direction. We all need to work together, all stakeholders across police, transport, housing and music industry and not to move to close a premises immediately when there are issues, but rather sit down together and work out strategies to improve and resolve issues. When people die at the beach or on public transport as at Croydon, hard and thorny questions must indeed be asked but closing down such vital areas of our national culture and heritage cannot be the solution.

It is fantastic that we will be able to go to fabric again and it will host the best of the world’s talent for all to enjoy together. However, we must make further changes so that venues are not held accountable for personal behaviour, whether that is for someone being violent, abusive or ingesting toxic substances. We all have a common goal in striving for this together. We should remember too, that at one point it was inconceivable that needle sharing for heroin addicts would be permissible. Now it is seen simply as common sense. We live in a new and changing world and we must act to ensure that our clubs, bars, festivals and pop ups are not one incident away from closure. Fabric is back - hurrah! But it has to operate at levels that are immensely trying – and in a world where things simply happen. Let's all have our voices heard now that so many have done so much to help save fabric. Now, let's all save nightlife together.

Alan D Miller is Chairman of The Night Time Industries Association, follow him on Twitter