London has a Soho problem. We need to fix it now.
It was that gloriously sleazy bard of synth-pop Marc Almond who captured it perfectly: “People come from all over the world to see this little place they’ve seen in movies and read about in history books: Soho.”
Soho is London’s other Square Mile, filled not with the chatter of high finance, but with the clink of glasses, the whiff of Italian coffee and the thrum of a grand time had and a grander time yet to come. It is the swoop from glamour to grime, it is theatre and art and gossip and whisper; and it is dying on its feet.
Yesterday the “night czar” Amy Lamé wrote in the Gay Times that she was working with Sadiq Khan to help save Soho’s struggling nightlife venues, especially those supporting the LGBTQI+ community. But is it working?
You don’t have to listen too hard to hear the cries over the vanishing Soho’s nightlife. Cafés and shops are folding, staff shortages are rampant and the kind of discretionary spending on which hospitality — let’s face it, fun — relies is the first to be reined in as the cost of living rises steeply. But those who do still venture out, especially during the week, are finding a hostile landscape of “no drinking outside” and early closing. The al fresco reception which was one of the saving graces of the pandemic? Gone now, those temporary licences revoked.
Sure, the hospitality industry is suffering from a bad case of long Covid, but with the pandemic now officially over, we should be looking forward, not back. Lamé is on the case, surely? She’s been in post for seven years now and receives a £117,000 salary, around which she fits hosting a weekly show on Radio 6. During the pandemic, she helped Sadiq Khan establish a support fund of £2.3m for struggling venues; for comparison, London’s nighttime economy is worth about £26.3bn.
She has unveiled a handful of Night Time Enterprise Zones, with funding attached: last autumn, Vauxhall received £130,000, some of which will go to local artists to paint murals to celebrate the area’s LGBTQIA+ history, and some of which will be used to identify locations for “after dark” cultural, leisure and educational activities. (No, I don’t think that means dogging.)
Meanwhile, licences are under threat as residents’ groups complain of noise and overcrowding. Westminster Council is in thrall to organisations like the Soho Society, which described the outdoor seating during the pandemic as “poorly managed resulting in a number of problems around access, amenity, cleanliness and safety”, those watchwords of a truly lively party city.
Areas change, of course, and residents should not have their formerly peaceful homesteads blighted. Those who have lived in Soho since before, let’s say, 1680 have every right to complain. Otherwise, it’s caveat emptor: if you move to an area synonymous with nightlife and complain about late noise, you cannot expect a straight-faced hearing—except from Westminster Council, it seems.
Collectively, we — Londoners, voters — have a choice. Soho could be, as it has been, a glittering jewel in London’s global crown, a celebration of vibrant, diverse, hugger-mugger, high-low, industry-saving hospitality and enjoyment. Or the mayor, or his successor, and the council could genuflect before well-heeled, grim-visag’d middle-class residents and promise earnestly to keep the noise down. It might not be the easy option, but I think I know which one is better for the capital.