The Greater Manchester Music Commission - statement

A statement from the Greater Manchester Music Commission on the outcome of the Night & Day and Manchester City Council Noise Abatement Notice Case

The Greater Manchester Music Commission welcomes news that iconic grassroots music venue Night & Day Café will be able to continue to present live music and club events and that District Judge Margaret McCormack agreed with the noise levels offered by the venue to Manchester City Council in June 2023 as part of joint acoustic testing.

For more than thirty two years Night & Day has developed, championed, and provided a stage for some of the world’s finest musical talent, helping define Manchester as one of the most creative and culturally rich cities in the world.

Manchester would not be the city it is today without grassroots music venues like Night & Day, a venue that has played a notable role in establishing the Northern Quarter as one of the most vibrant communities in the UK, curating the character, geography and soundtrack of the area. Night & Day not only pre-dates the development at the centre of this case, it pre-dates the Northern Quarter having a name.

Despite this encouraging outcome, the Greater Manchester Music Commission is concerned by many aspects of this case, particularly by how operational limitations may impact on Night & Day’s cultural programming and the ongoing economic viability of the business.

It is troubling that throughout this drawn-out procedure, Manchester City Council has refused to take ownership of historic planning mistakes. When the adjoining building was converted from a warehouse to apartments in 2000, no consideration was given to the pre-existing live music venue, and Manchester City Council did not ensure that the developer undertook crucial acoustic reporting, or that they entered into constructive dialogue with Night & Day.

Disturbing too, is the judge’s statement, on-record, that the Northern Quarter should not be considered to have a cultural focus, but is instead a ‘mixed use’ area. Every night-time business in the Northern Quarter should feel extremely concerned by this news. It not only sends an alarming message about the value Manchester City Council places on our cultural quarters, but essentially puts all those organisations on an ‘at risk’ register where a single noise complaint could force them to change the very nature of their business.

As the GMMC have stated previously, a definitive solution to this widespread issue has to involve improved national planning legislation, but on a local level it’s essential we take a clear collective stance: We need to see a more thorough execution of planning policy around new developments that may impact unfairly on existing cultural businesses, including recognition of our commitment to Agent

of Change. We need to see a more measured approach to environmental health dialogue and enforcement.

Categorically, we need to see unequivocal support for our cultural assets, enterprises and neighbourhoods. It is dispiriting to see civic leaders extol the virtue and value of our music industry and communities while doing little or nothing to protect and secure them.

The timeframe and manner in which this case has been conducted, including inflammatory statements by legal representation during the hearing, has done significant damage to the reputation of Manchester as a music city. The personal and financial cost to the owners and staff at Night & Day and the wider music community in Greater Manchester is equally significant and damaging.

Any venue forced to fight this kind of action faces significant expense, in Night & Day’s case, around £100,000 with a similar figure being spent by Manchester City Council. This is money, resources and time taken away from cultural programming and venue improvements, to say nothing of ongoing operational costs.

This case comes at a time when UK grassroots music venues are already facing considerable challenges.

The Music Venue Trust Annual Report 2023 states that last year the UK saw a loss of 125 grassroots music venues. These businesses either closed or ceased hosting live music altogether.

In 2023, the Music Venue Trust Emergency Response Service saw a 38% increase in emergency cases, and threats to venues from noise complaints were a key trend. Noise abatement orders and/or other neighbour disputes were identified as a contributing factor to permanent closure.

The Greater Manchester Music Commission would welcome greater consistency between the actions of Manchester City Council and the rhetoric of their developing Culture Strategy which includes data that states that: 82% of residents believe that culture brings happiness to their lives and that 58% named ‘going to music events’ as the thing that they loved to see, do or make.

The tagline for Manchester’s Cultural Strategy consultation is ‘It All Starts with a Spark.’ Indeed, in places like Night & Day.

So where are we now?

It’s welcome news that Night & Day are able to operate as they have done for over 32 years, albeit with conditions in place, but we are left with a local system that is unable to recognise and correct historic poor practice, one that spends excessive amounts of public money, one that puts venue operators and their teams under huge emotional and financial pressure, and one that can make wildly unpopular decisions while bizarrely misreading the cultural essence of an entire city. And sadly, one that could still lead to the permanent closure of any part of our cultural and night-time landscape.

The Greater Manchester Music Commission

In 2019, UK Music and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) published the Greater Manchester Music Review, which included ten recommendations on how the city region could support and develop music in Greater Manchester. One of the recommendations was the formation of a Greater Manchester Music Commission.

Following the re-election of Andy Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester in May 2021, GMCA established the Commission, which meets four times a year, from 2021. Andy Burnham is the political lead for the Greater Manchester Music Commission, with support from co-chairs Jay Taylor and Rivca Burns.

Signed by Greater Manchester Music Commission members;

Jay Taylor: GMMC co-chair / Music Venue Trust
Rivca Burns: GMMC co-chair / Sounds from the Other City Bob Riley: Manchester Camerata

Damian Morgan: Artist Manager & Music Educator
Dave Brown: Even the Stars
Jeff Thompson: Un-Convention
Kirsty Fairclough: School of Digital Arts / Manchester Jazz Festival Laura Howkins: Voltalab Sound Studios

Ottilia Ördög: Beat Bazaar
Santana Guerout: Band on the Wall Sour Grapes Records
Tom Besford: Sound Roots
Victoria Robinson: The Met