The Night Tube could transform London clubbing

London’s clubbing landscape has been marred by gloom for much of the last decade. Gentrification has spread aggressively across the city like the Great Fire of 1666, except the Pudding Lane bakery is a board room at an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm, and beloved nightspots such as Plastic People, Rhythm Factory and Dance Tunnel have crumbled in its wake.

But a new light shines on the horizon with the Night Tube launching this month. The English capital’s lack of round-the-clock infrastructure has seen the vitality of its nightlife lagging behind 24-hour cities such as Berlin and Amsterdam for too long, but now the addition of unrestricted weekend travel to the city arrives with the potential to transform its clubbing scene.

New areas of the map that have previously been sparse of parties due to night-time accessibility being limited to expensive taxis could now serve as prime locations away from the strict constraints imposed on densely populated areas. “There are plenty of non-residential areas which will have the type of old industrial buildings which make for amazing clubs in the right hands,” says Nic Baird, promoter and DJ behind the popular Make Me and Darkroom nights, while Enzo Siragusa has confirmed he’s began looking further afield for spaces to host his FUSE parties, revealing: “We've looked up and down the Central and Victoria line to see what there is, and looked further into North London and further out East. There could be really cool warehouses available in some of these slightly more industrial areas which are serviced by a tube station, and having 24-hour access makes them more accessible.”

Not only will the Night Tube enable cheaper travel, but it will also provide a safer option than hanging around remote bus stops in the early hours in order to get home which will see an increase in people willing to make lengthy journeys for smaller scale nights and help London’s underground to thrive. Samantha Nelson, co-owner of Dalston-based DIY space Hub16, says “there's a huge divide between North, South, East, West, and I think [the Night Tube] will heal it.” She notes many of the conversations she’s had about the impact of the Night Tube have been with women who feel it will aid them to “travel more places and get home safely.” This increased security will have the knock-on effect of helping London’s DIY scene to grow and improve the standing of fringe communities. “So much of DIY culture is rooted in giving a voice to marginalised groups and giving a free space to groups who really, really need it,” says Samantha, “I think [the Night Tube] will slowly encourage people to meet up more and that could give people confidence that they can actually put something on.”

At times London’s nightlife seems to be endured rather than engaged with by institutions of power, and something that everyone we spoke to brought up was the need for greater availability of late-night licenses. What use will the Night Tube be if there’s no clubs to travel to after all? Perhaps the most important aspect of the Night Tube, then, is the potential it has to de-stigmatise ‘the night’ by shining a spotlight on the extent of night-time activity. “People's work, life, eating, drinking patterns are completely different to the 20th century, but sometimes are still being governed as if we were the previous generation,” says Dan Beaumont, owner of recently closed nightspot Dance Tunnel. “The fact is the 9 to 5 experience has been totally disrupted and people live and interact in a completely different way now. We need to embrace all of the things that happen at night, and as a result that can have a civilising effect, and it can actually make us more prosperous, safer, and more interesting. There's no need to be afraid of the night,” he adds.

Union Club in Vauxhall, host of many afterhours events which begin in the morning and run through to the afternoon, provides a setting for many of the Londoners whose lives have progressed beyond traditional daytime hours. “Many of our customers work in hospitality and they aren’t turning up at ours having been out all night, they are turning up at ours straight from work. We aren’t freaks, we are just people who don’t wish to be tucked up in bed by 11 o’clock every night. There is nothing wrong with wanting to go out all night and the more normal this is seen to be the better it is for everyone,” says the club, “one of the big things we see coming out of [the Night Tube] is a greater degree of legitimisation of late night culture.”

If nightlife becomes accepted as an important aspect of the UK’s economy, this could spark a review into the city’s licensing laws, and lead to change in the biggest scourge currently facing clubland. “There are too many ‘I’ve had my youth so pull up the draw bridge and leave me in peace’ attitudes at work among those who object to the night-time economy,” says Ian Gough, co-owner of Brixton Jamm. “The argument that, for every person complaining about a night club, there are five people inside enjoying it, is often lost and is certainly difficult to make in council licensing chambers, I would say that the results of the number of passengers using the Night Tube will tend to validate all aspects of the night-time economy and the justification for it, and be a useful statistic to use in protecting the night-time venues.”

However, Jane Fitz, DJ and co-founder of the Night Moves party, worries that it may be too late for London, and an increase in the city’s transport links will merely accelerate harmful gentrification. “I can't see the march of property developers slacking off any time soon,” she says. When the notion of untapped areas becoming vibrant new hubs of night-time activity is raised, she highlights the potential negatives of this situation. “Anywhere that is a centre becomes a target. It's easy to be policed, it's easy to be tainted by bad rep, it's easy to get abused by people who just go to that area just to get fucked, which is what has happened outside my front door for the past eight years,” she counters, adding that “you could do whatever you wanted in Hackney 14 years ago and now you can't because every former industrial spot is getting razed to the ground and surrounded by ‘design-built luxury apartments’.”

Jane makes an important point. We can’t solely rely on a transport system to fix London’s faltering club scene, but the positives it brings should serve as a significant boost in the fight for greater respect and support of the night-time industry. Alan Miller, chairman of the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), is someone who has been leading the campaign for central and local government to cooperate more closely with nightlife and not see it as a problematic feature of the economy. He believes that the Night Tube “will have an enormously beneficial impact on all sorts of business, culture, opportunity, freedom of movement”, and that this can be used as an impetus in changing the way councils think, but it also requires people to speak up and take a more robust approach in supporting nightlife. “That's why we've launched Night Life Matters,” he says, “often councillors hear from one or two people that may complain. They don't hear from the hundreds of thousands, the millions of people that love going out every week. We want them to sign a petition that goes in to local councillors and MPs so they can have their voices heard.

It’s easy to be disheartened by club closures, but there’s life left in London yet and the scene will only improve if strong action is taken to support it, especially with the positive shine the Night Tube looks set to bring. This could then see London soon catch up with more dynamic European cities and become a clubbing hotspot. Or even go beyond that, as Alan Miller says: “I think it can supersede any city in the world. We have got better infrastructure, we have got more possible variety and opportunities, we have a huge amount of talent. It's all in our choice. It's all in our hands.”

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Digital Intern. Follow him on Twitter

Eliot Wyatt is a freelance illustrator based in Bristol. Visit his website