Motion, a regular fixture on lists of the world’s best nightclubs, sits on a light industrial site minutes from Bristol’s Temple Meads train station. It has a licence until 7am and space for 4,000 people between its outdoor bars and old listed warehouses. The team at DJ magazine, a publication covering clubs and dance music, recently described it as going “from strength to strength”.
It also sits in the heart of one of the UK’s largest urban regenerations at the Temple Quarter, which promises 11,000 homes and 22,000 jobs over the next 25 years. And the tensions between Motion and these neighbouring schemes mean the future of the club should be as much of interest to developers as DJs, as questions are asked over the value and viability of cities’ night-time economies.
Nightclub closures in Bristol have put a spotlight on Motion’s battle for survival in the face of development. With immediate plans for 1,300 flats lining the banks of the River Avon, the nightclub owner has joined forces with the city council and is calling for legal protections for its business.
“This is about what the city is famous for,” says Nicola Beech, Bristol City Council’s cabinet member for spatial planning and city design. “Motion, alongside our festivals and parks, are a big part of why people come to Bristol.
“Our night-time economy employs thousands of people and is so important to our city’s fabric. If the environment around [night-time businesses] is changing and that’s having an undue effect on them, there is an unfairness there that should be corrected.”
More than a third of UK nightclubs have closed in the past decade, according to Music Venue Trust. As city centres expand and urban residential development takes off, nightclubs have been forced to adapt. But planners and campaigners are calling for developers to take action too.
Superclubs armed with planning
In Temple Quarter, developer Square Bay has plans for 367 apartments, 841 student bedrooms, 250,000 sq ft of commercial space and a school on a 10.7-acre site at Silverthorne Lane, directly adjacent to Motion. Across the river, Summix Developments is planning about 700 student bedrooms.
“One of the challenges of Temple Quarter is that there are multiple land holdings all applying for planning permission around the nightclub,” says Beech. “The key thing is understanding what tools are at the disposal of the nightclub for it to continue to operate.
“Fundamentally, our objective is for Motion to be able to co-exist with this housing and student flats.”
Motion wants to use a legal agreement called a deed of easement. That would require developers to ensure that future residents are made aware of the nightclub and prohibit complaints when the club is operating within its licence conditions.
“It is just trying to protect what we do at an existing level,” says Motion managing director Dan Deeks. “Those complaints can have a massive effect on our business. The council could enforce restrictions on our licence and operating times. It could change our business to the point of closure.”
Deeks adds: “Because there are so many developers, our approach has been trying to get everyone including the council on board with a sensible solution that works, rather than targeting any one of them.”
Almost 10,000 people have signed Deeks’s online petition calling for developers to agree a deed of easement.
This mechanism has a history of supporting superclubs. In London, The Ministry of Sound used it when Oakmayne built 335 homes next to the SE1 club and the developer also took precautions such as sealing windows to reduce the noise impact.
In August, developer Abbey Homes received approval for 79 homes in Milton Keynes next door to The Stables. The council mandated a range of noise mitigations and a deed of easement, for the first time written into the consent.
“It protects all parties,” Deeks says. “The difficult thing is whether it could be implemented as a planning condition or a private agreement between a venue and a developer. I don’t think that would deter people from buying those properties. A developer might have a different opinion to that.”
Square Bay managing director Markham Hanson said the scheme has been designed around the nightclub, placing offices rather than apartments next to the site to screen the acoustics and with sound insulation in the buildings.
“Right from the beginning of this project we have been very conscious of Motion’s presence and cultural significance and have worked hard to ensure it can continue to operate alongside our development,” says Hanson.
He added that Square Bay had previously had discussions with the nightclub owners on how to best manage the “occasional outdoor events”, but said Motion abruptly closed the door on this.
“It is our aspiration that Motion will form an important part of the vibrant canal-side community that the regeneration of the Temple Quarter is creating.”
Proponents of mixed-use schemes and night-time economies argue that nightclubs and resi can live together, with a vibrant nightlife bringing value to the area.
“This could set a standard nationwide for tackling these issues of needing housing and trying to preserve nightlife at the same time,” says Deeks.
Though not all local authorities think like Bristol City Council. Under affordability and viability squeezes, the built environment will be forced to assess the long-term value of neighbouring nightlife, aside from pure financial gains.
Expired, evolved venues
Motion’s efforts to protect its business are only the latest example of tensions between some of Bristol’s best-known nightclubs and the property industry.
Ravers rejoiced last month as Bristol City Council unanimously refused planning consent for a new student scheme on the site of the Blue Mountain nightclub.
Despite a shortfall of student beds in the city, councillors threw out plans for 241 units from RedOak on the site of the famed Stokes Croft nightclub, warning that the loss of such music venues would be “death by a thousand cuts” for the city.
Other venue owners, however, are more amenable to change. Streets away from Blue Mountain is long-standing venue Lakota. After 30 years, owners the Burgess family have opted to “explore new opportunities for the site” and submitted plans for a mixed-use scheme of 54 flats and business space.
According to UK Music, half of Bristol’s live music venues are threatened by development and planning issues.
“Following the drive towards urban renaissance and brownfield regeneration, city and town centres are becoming more populous,” says Ben Taylor, development director at Savills. “The by-product of that is that we are consuming secondary, lower-value brownfield space and putting in its place residential and mixed-use development.”
Taylor says there is pressure on nightclubs like Motion, Blue Mountain and Lakota, which are not operational for most of the week and are not able to pay competitive rents as land values rise. “They are low-rent tenants,” he says. “The fact that they are music venues is secondary to that fact.”
Taylor acknowledges that clubs and music venues are “an important part of our culture.” But he adds: “What we can’t do is sterilise parts of the city to preserve them. There is the pricing point, but there is also sound pollution.”
While some occupiers may be priced out of the city, the fate of others like Motion, the Fleece and cargo ship-turned-club Thekla relies on their new neighbours’ willingness to adapt to the existing surroundings.
“If they are paying enough rent and their landlord elected to keep them, then the agent of change comes in and the adjacent landowners will have to consider how they respond to that,” Taylor says.
The agent of change planning rule puts responsibility for mitigating impacts on the new development, not the existing occupiers. It means developers will need to consider factors such as sound insulation, glazing and placement of doors and balconies to reduce the noise for residents.
The principle started off as case law created in Bristol as MPs sought to save the Fleece and was added to the national planning policy framework at the end of last year.
“It is a homegrown initiative in Bristol to say fundamentally if a venue is there and its environment changes, it should not be the venue that has to change,” Beech says.
Nonetheless, the agent of change rule has yet to be fully rolled out to the local plans and does not provide full protection from future complaints in the way the deed of easement does. As campaigners fight for this safeguarding for the future, the jury is out over whether the property industry will play ball.
New night-time economies
Legal & General has called for planning reform to encourage the development of new music venues. Working with consultants at Sound Diplomacy, it released recommendations for developers to plan for future destinations as part of mixed-use schemes and use future tax levies to fund development.
“Housing doesn’t just exist on an island,” says Shain Shapiro, founder of Sound Diplomacy. “We have to think about the amenities that go into making places worth living in, and one of these is nightclubs.”
Shapiro says masterplanners need to consider cultural provision alongside other uses at the earliest stages of development so that all buildings are fit for purpose.
“The quid pro quo nature of how we develop devalues what makes a place a place,” he says. “We need those designing, planning and building these premises to utilise modern technologies to mitigate noise.”
He also points out that venues need to adapt to maximise the way they use space and the revenues they can generate. “The best music venues and nightclubs are adapting, they are just not talking about it.”
With new clubs like Printworks London, SE16, the Drumsheds in Enfield, north London, and Magazine in Greenwich, SE10, supported by Knight Dragon, Shapiro is hopeful for the future.
Beech too is focused on expanding the night-time economy and making sure businesses have a voice in city planning through her panel Bristol At Night. “The daytime economy has business organisations that represent their needs, in the night-time economy that doesn’t really exist on a level playing field,” she says.
“What is really important when we go through the planning stages now is to bring planning and licensing together and understand how that manifests in real life. That is often the challenge in planning, but we have to actually forward think to how this will look when those buildings are occupied.”
As Bristol seeks to bolster its nightlife, it means evolution for existing venues as well as opening up the city with new events spaces, and there will likely be lessons that cities across the country can learn.
Beech notes that Motion is already looking to become a “multi-use venue” that is operational morning, noon and night, at the same time as pushing for its deed of easement and raising awareness about the threats to the night-time economy.
“This is where planning can be helpful and should be more available and accessible to people in the community,” says Beech. “To get people democratically involved in this process, which is critical to this city’s future.”
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