Alex Challoner is a former prospective London Mayoral Candidate & Director of London Vision Network
Summer is here, and it’s a hot one. So perhaps we should not be surprised that City Hall is trying to get some good PR out of the heatwave by announcing the second year of the Mayor of London’s ‘Summer Streets’ initiative to “see the biggest ever summer for al fresco dining in the capital’s history.”
There are several policy problems with this wheeze though.
Firstly, it is inadequate. Whilst the scheme is more generous than last year’s effort – with a budget of £500,000 rather than £300,000 – it is still small beer by City Hall standards. That’s barely more than the salary paid to three of the mayor’s deputies.
Not only is the funding meagre, but its impact is also being further diluted by spreading it pretty thin. That £500,000 is being divided between 13 boroughs (and 15 different projects). Some 80 per cent of the budget is going to projects in Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Brent and Lambeth. Eleven smaller projects will have to share the last £100,000 between them.
Secondly, there is also the naked partisan politics of the scheme. All four of the boroughs to receive the lion’s share of the funding were Labour controlled when they bid for it (and three of them, not counting Lambeth, still are). All four of the local authorities that were successful last year were also Labour controlled when they won funds. I’d put money on the majority of next year’s winning bids being from Labour boroughs too (despite there being so very few of them after the local elections).
Not a single penny of this scheme is going to a Tory borough. The message that this seems to send is that only Labour-leaning boroughs can have summer fun. Fancy an Aperol Spritz in the streets of Wandsworth or Bexley? You can forget it! Want to watch the world cup final al fresco in Reform controlled Havering? No chance!
Thirdly, it is pretty fleeting. The press release announcing the successful schemes was only issued on 29 June, leaving just a few weeks of remaining summer for these projects to be organised and take place. Furthermore, if any analysis is conducted into the value and impact of ‘Summer Streets’, how will the bean counters be able to determine whether any economic boost was due to this policy or would have happened during a long, hot World Cup summer anyway?
Now, I’m all for Londoners making the most of their all-too-brief summers (and for finding the economic silver lining to a heatwave!) Watching the world cup on a big screen in a public space is a great way to bring disparate communities together. But I would point out that it is already happening without City Hall cash. Private sector sponsored World Cup watching events are taking place in Boxpark in Croydon, Wembley, Camden and Shoreditch, at Chelsea Football Club, at Dagenham & Redbridge Football Club, at Flat Iron Square in London Bridge and at the Truman Brewery to name but a few.
Why is the public sector trying to duplicate – or worse still, compete with – something the private sector is more than capable of delivering?
Why not commit GLA resources to matching or topping up what boroughs raise from corporate sponsorship? That way City Hall money could be used to turn good events into great events. That would also be fairer and ensure that viable, commercially sustainable projects were being backed. Better still, City Hall money could be used to fund events and marketing activity that boosts hospitality during quieter times of the year, not peak times when the public need little encouragement to go out and enjoy themselves.
Similarly, there are plenty of places to dine al fresco in the capital already. Personally, my favourite is Franco’s in Jermyn Street, which boasts the largest rosé terrace in London (which is great for cigar lovers). Why not convene the boroughs to agree on a more positive approach to ensure more locations are approved in future? Or lobby to change the planning regulations to make it easier for premises to get permission when applying?
Simply promoting those businesses that already offer outdoor dining – perhaps backed up with a discount scheme or a website to help customers find restaurants with terraces and tables – would be a start! There are better, more effective ways the mayor could boost hospitality businesses across the capital. He could simply back Tom Kerridge’s ‘VATs The Problem’ campaign to cut VAT to 10 per cent for hospitality. But I suspect he won’t.
Sadiq Khan has a lamentable record when it comes to the capital’s hospitality sector.
More than 3,000 pubs, bars and nightclubs have closed in London since 2020. In 2024, research by Bonus Finder saw London ranked as the worst city in the UK for a night out because of the prohibitive cost of pints and hotel rooms. UK Hospitality, the trade body, has estimated that one third of hospitality businesses are currently operating at a loss. Time Out recently lamented that “it’s been a bit of bloodbath when it comes to the number of great London restaurants that have closed so far this year.”
What has the Mayor of London done to help our beleaguered businesses? For example, was the mayor one of the many voices that lobbied the Chancellor hard to reverse the business rates rise that licensed premises faced? Nope. Did he speak out against the national insurance rises that are thought to have destroyed 100,000 jobs in the hospitality sector? Of course not. Is he a critic of the Employment Rights Act (or the ‘banter ban’ contained within it)? No, in fact he welcomed the legislation.
He has left it far too late to try to salvage some sort of political legacy as a ‘fun Mayor’ now. It will take more than a few picnic tables to wipe the memory of a decade of failure in office.
Alex Challoner is a former prospective London Mayoral Candidate & Director of London Vision Network
Summer is here, and it’s a hot one. So perhaps we should not be surprised that City Hall is trying to get some good PR out of the heatwave by announcing the second year of the Mayor of London’s ‘Summer Streets’ initiative to “see the biggest ever summer for al fresco dining in the capital’s history.”
There are several policy problems with this wheeze though.
Firstly, it is inadequate. Whilst the scheme is more generous than last year’s effort – with a budget of £500,000 rather than £300,000 – it is still small beer by City Hall standards. That’s barely more than the salary paid to three of the mayor’s deputies.
Not only is the funding meagre, but its impact is also being further diluted by spreading it pretty thin. That £500,000 is being divided between 13 boroughs (and 15 different projects). Some 80 per cent of the budget is going to projects in Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Brent and Lambeth. Eleven smaller projects will have to share the last £100,000 between them.
Secondly, there is also the naked partisan politics of the scheme. All four of the boroughs to receive the lion’s share of the funding were Labour controlled when they bid for it (and three of them, not counting Lambeth, still are). All four of the local authorities that were successful last year were also Labour controlled when they won funds. I’d put money on the majority of next year’s winning bids being from Labour boroughs too (despite there being so very few of them after the local elections).
Not a single penny of this scheme is going to a Tory borough. The message that this seems to send is that only Labour-leaning boroughs can have summer fun. Fancy an Aperol Spritz in the streets of Wandsworth or Bexley? You can forget it! Want to watch the world cup final al fresco in Reform controlled Havering? No chance!
Thirdly, it is pretty fleeting. The press release announcing the successful schemes was only issued on 29 June, leaving just a few weeks of remaining summer for these projects to be organised and take place. Furthermore, if any analysis is conducted into the value and impact of ‘Summer Streets’, how will the bean counters be able to determine whether any economic boost was due to this policy or would have happened during a long, hot World Cup summer anyway?
Now, I’m all for Londoners making the most of their all-too-brief summers (and for finding the economic silver lining to a heatwave!) Watching the world cup on a big screen in a public space is a great way to bring disparate communities together. But I would point out that it is already happening without City Hall cash. Private sector sponsored World Cup watching events are taking place in Boxpark in Croydon, Wembley, Camden and Shoreditch, at Chelsea Football Club, at Dagenham & Redbridge Football Club, at Flat Iron Square in London Bridge and at the Truman Brewery to name but a few.
Why is the public sector trying to duplicate – or worse still, compete with – something the private sector is more than capable of delivering?
Why not commit GLA resources to matching or topping up what boroughs raise from corporate sponsorship? That way City Hall money could be used to turn good events into great events. That would also be fairer and ensure that viable, commercially sustainable projects were being backed. Better still, City Hall money could be used to fund events and marketing activity that boosts hospitality during quieter times of the year, not peak times when the public need little encouragement to go out and enjoy themselves.
Similarly, there are plenty of places to dine al fresco in the capital already. Personally, my favourite is Franco’s in Jermyn Street, which boasts the largest rosé terrace in London (which is great for cigar lovers). Why not convene the boroughs to agree on a more positive approach to ensure more locations are approved in future? Or lobby to change the planning regulations to make it easier for premises to get permission when applying?
Simply promoting those businesses that already offer outdoor dining – perhaps backed up with a discount scheme or a website to help customers find restaurants with terraces and tables – would be a start! There are better, more effective ways the mayor could boost hospitality businesses across the capital. He could simply back Tom Kerridge’s ‘VATs The Problem’ campaign to cut VAT to 10 per cent for hospitality. But I suspect he won’t.
Sadiq Khan has a lamentable record when it comes to the capital’s hospitality sector.
More than 3,000 pubs, bars and nightclubs have closed in London since 2020. In 2024, research by Bonus Finder saw London ranked as the worst city in the UK for a night out because of the prohibitive cost of pints and hotel rooms. UK Hospitality, the trade body, has estimated that one third of hospitality businesses are currently operating at a loss. Time Out recently lamented that “it’s been a bit of bloodbath when it comes to the number of great London restaurants that have closed so far this year.”
What has the Mayor of London done to help our beleaguered businesses? For example, was the mayor one of the many voices that lobbied the Chancellor hard to reverse the business rates rise that licensed premises faced? Nope. Did he speak out against the national insurance rises that are thought to have destroyed 100,000 jobs in the hospitality sector? Of course not. Is he a critic of the Employment Rights Act (or the ‘banter ban’ contained within it)? No, in fact he welcomed the legislation.
He has left it far too late to try to salvage some sort of political legacy as a ‘fun Mayor’ now. It will take more than a few picnic tables to wipe the memory of a decade of failure in office.