Calling Time: Managing Activities in Space and Time in the Evening/Night-time Economy

Abstract

Abstract Recent years have seen the emergence of two policy objectives and associated development trends in UK city centres relating to urban vitality and to the urban renaissance policy agenda. These involve a shift towards more city centre residential development and, associated with the 24-Hour City agenda, a shift towards the development of evening/night-time economies (ENTEs). Mixed land uses are seen as an essential component of this vitality. But conflicts often arise from different land uses in close proximity, which, in turn, suggests a need for the sensitive management of urban areas in general and the ENTE in particular. Focusing on the management of activities in space and time in the ENTE of UK cities, this article explores how planning and liquor licensing controls, the two main sets of contextual controls for the ENTE, provide both the context for more active forms of management and policing and frame an opportunity space for behaviour and conduct. The article's overarching argument is that the management of the ETNE should be considered in terms of a fine-grained understanding of space and time. Keywords: Urban managementtime managementevening economy24-hour city Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank and acknowledge Leona Mellis who undertook the initial analysis of the questionnaire. The authors would also like to thank and acknowledge the three anonymous references and the editors for their helpful and constructive comments. Notes 1. The following are a small selection of headlines from the national and local (Aberdeen) press: 'Fights, vomiting, nakedness … a typical night out in Aberdeen' (Aberdeen Evening Express, 19 August 2003, pp. 4–5); 'Law changes to crack down on binge-drinking culture' (Aberdeen Press & Journal, 20 August 2003, p. 9); 'All-day pubs to get go-ahead despite binge boozing fear' (Daily Telegraph, 16 March 2004, p. 6); 'City violence prompts call for clampdown on drink culture' (Aberdeen Press & Journal, 26 August, 2004, p. 7); 'None for the road – Police demand ban on more pubs and clubs on trouble-hit Union Street' (Aberdeen Evening Express 26 August 2004, pp. 4–5). 'Doctors say 24-hour pub opening will cost the NHS millions' (Sunday Telegraph, 2 January 2005, p. 8); 'Young binge drinkers are blamed as street attacks rise' (Daily Telegraph, 1 July 2005, p. 2); 'Drink laws "will turn towns into Faliraki"' (The Independent, 10 August 2005, p.11); and 'New drinking laws will end in violence, warn judges' (The Times, 10 August 2005, p.1). 2. As this distinction is less clear-cut than suggested here, a point of clarification is required. In the UK, liquor licenses can only be granted where there is a planning consent for the appropriate land use/type of development (or alternatively, where that land use is regarded as an established use). The spatial component of licensing controls, therefore, operates within the spatial component of planning controls. 3. In this article, the term 'time-based' strategies is used to distinguish these from the use of 'temporal' strategies, the latter is more commonly used in Europen debates and refers to more complex and integrated fields of intervention (see, for example, Mareggi, Citation2002). 4. 'Structure' refers to the context within which actors behave and which, at a particular moment in time, define the range of actions available to those actors. 5. Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) is additional planning guidance that does not part of the adopted (and therefore) statutory development plan. It is a means of avoiding excessive detail in the statutory plan. 6. In the English and Scottish planning systems, Use Classes Orders (UCO) group all land uses into classes. Changes of use within each class are considered not to constitute development and therefore do not need planning permission. The General Permitted Development Order, which sets out more generally what is 'permitted development' (i.e. development that does not need planning permission), also permits some one-way changes between use classes. 7. Current national policy guidance could be interpreted as favouring dispersal. The new (English) version of Planning Policy Statement 6: Planning for Town Centres (ODPM, Citation2005b, s2.22) refers (somewhat vaguely) to a need to ensure that "… tourism, leisure and cultural activities … are dispersed throughout the centre". 8. Area-based designations are also being considered at central government level. A DCMS/Home Office/ODPM consultation paper, Drinking Responsibly: The Government's Proposals (Citation2005), proposes the introduction of Alcohol Disorder Management Zones. If designated, licensed premises within the zone would be required to contribute towards the Policing and other costs of dealing with the disorder being created by alcohol within the area. The paper argues that the introduction of such zones would provide "… an incentive to those managing licensed premises in the area to reduce the level of alcohol fuelled disorder in their area through better management of their premises" (p. 6). Under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, the Police and local authorities can agree that, in problem localities, groups of people intimidating, harassing, alarming or distressing the public may be dispersed, and those under 16 who are unsupervised can be sent home after 9 pm. 9. Planning legislation allows planning authorities to grant permission subject to 'such conditions as they think fit', subject to the limitation that conditions should be: necessary; relevant to planning; relevant to the development to be permitted; enforceable; precise; and reasonable in all other respects (see Cullingworth & Nadin, Citation2002, p.135). 10. To explain the metaphor: to hold up one's trousers, one may use a belt or braces (i.e. straps over one's shoulders, known as 'suspenders' in the US and elsewhere). If one has both belt and braces, then either the belt or the braces are redundant. If one has neither belt nor braces, then one's trousers will fall down.