London Night Czar Amy Lamé criticised for "24-hour city" claims

Amy Lamé has come under fire for claiming London is a "24-hour city."

In an interview with BBC Politics London, London's Night Czar claimed she had fulfilled her duty of "helping London thrive as a 24-hour city" for which she was tasked by Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2016.

She continues further into the interview to say: "We are a truly 24-hour city. We’ve got 1.3 million people who work in London at night and are doing really important jobs like working for the NHS, driving our buses, stacking shelves so that we can live our lives during the day."

Lamé has received criticism in recent weeks amid reports that London's nightlife has suffered under her tenure, with The Sunday Times reporting that other cities, such as Liverpool and Birmingham, had "overtaken" London in nightlife transactions since the pandemic.

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Sadiq Khan shared the clip on Twitter with the caption: "London is leading the world in its 24-hour policy with other global cities looking to us for inspiration."

The clip has gone viral on social media as many people share their thoughts on the claim that London is a "24-hour city".

In response to the claim, one Twitter user responded: "Honestly never felt more politically gaslit than being told this ‘24-hour city’ thing constantly."

Another shared: "Anyone who says London is a 24-hour city doesn't go out in London"

One Twitter user highlights that in 2018, councillors approved a licensing policy for Hackney that all new venues in the borough must follow the "core" closing hours.

The curfews for new venues in Hackney are midnight on weekends, and 11:00PM during the week — however, these times can be extended if licensees can show their venue won’t cause "disrupt the area."

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Responding to the comments in a statement to Mixmag, Lamé referenced the challenges faced by the nightlife industry as a result of the pandemic, rising rents, business rates, staffing shortages and "the government’s cost-of-living and cost-of-doing-business crisis."

"The Mayor and I continue to work closely with businesses, venues, boroughs and Londoners to support them throughout these challenges and last year London’s hospitality industry sales outpaced the rest of the UK."

"We know challenges remain and we will continue to do all we can to protect and support venues across the capital and help new ones to open, and work with councils to make licensing easier to navigate, and support them to develop night time strategies to plan better for all aspect of life at night."

"We will also continue to stand up for the 1.3 million Londoners who work evenings and nights to ensure better pay and conditions as they keep our city working throughout the night.” the statement concludes.

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The Night Czar also wrote an op-ed for The Independent in which she details the ways she is "making a difference" to the city's nightlife.

The “24-hour city” claim continues in her statement as she says: "London is the best 24-hour city in the world, thanks to more than 1.3 million Londoners working at night, keeping the capital’s economy active 24/7."

Lamé referenced her "instrumental" role in securing the future reopening of Surrey Quays nightclub Printworks - which closed down in 2023 - and one of London’s newest venues, Drumsheds, which is open for events between 12:00PM and 10:30PM.

Last year, it was discovered that Amy Lamé had scored a 40% pay rise from September 2021 seeing her salary increase from £83,169 to £116,925.

Read more responses surrounding Lamé's claim that London is a "24-hour city" below.

Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Multimedia Editor, follow her on Twitter