Glasgow City Council pilot scheme to extend trading hours until 1am

07 November 2023 by
Glasgow City Council pilot scheme to extend trading hours until 1am

Glasgow City Council is to launch a 12-month pilot scheme to grant pubs and bars a licence to extend trading hours until 1am.

It is hoped the scheme, which is scheduled to launch next summer, will boost the city centre's late-night economy, and give time to assess the impact of an extra hour of opening before a decision is made on whether to make the change permanent.

At present, licensing hours in Glasgow extend until midnight, but the introduction of this scheme will bring the city in line with Edinburgh which allows pubs and bars to operate until 1am.

The launch of the scheme was announced in the council's Licensing Policy Statement published last Friday (3 November), which sets out its licencing policy for the next five years.

The council's Licensing Board said: "Strong support for 1am closing for pubs and other on-sale premises in the city centre was expressed during our recent consultation on licensing policy and this measure is something we wish to explore further."

The council added that no extension to opening hours will be made permanent before the impact of the trial, both on individual premises and more widely across the centre, has been assessed.

UKHospitality Scotland executive director Leon Thompson said: "This type of trial is exciting for pubs in Glasgow and is a great example of the sort of innovation that should be looked at within the existing licensing framework across all towns and cities.

"Of course, this kind of approach needs to be applied to the entirety of hospitality and the night-time economy to ensure all venues, licensed or not, are able to benefit from new ways of thinking. We're looking forward to seeing what the results of the trial will be."

Operators who wish to take part in the trial have until 31 January 2024 to apply.

This is not the first move in the council's plans to reinvigorate the city centre's night-life; earlier this summer, the council devised plans to grow its night-time economy through the provision of rooftop bars, European-style food halls and live music venues. And, in 2019, it launched a trial which enabled the city's nightclubs to remain open until 4am. The process was delayed due ot the pandemic but last month the council granted 10 nightclubs to be allowed to stay open until 4am.

Continue reading

You need to create an account to read this article. It's free and only requires a few basic details.

Already subscribed?

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media Group is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking