BEDA COMMENT

Dispersal Policies

Operational, BEda comment, december 2007, COMMENTS

It’s the end of the year again and naturally at this time of year it is traditional for those lovable newspaper journalists to roll out all those statistics about ‘x’ number of mince pies will be eaten, or ‘y’ number of turkeys will bite the dust, or ‘z’ pints of beer will be consumed over the Christmas period. Statistics are sometimes mildly amusing, sometimes bewildering and sometimes pretty illuminating.

If you look at an age demographics map of the population, for instance - something I’m wont to do from time to time - what you discover is that there is a massive midriff bump (a middle aged spread if you will) on the graph. This marked protuberance comes in the 35-45 bracket. From the Office of National Statistics we find (from their 2005 figures) that the average age of UK citizens is now 38.8 years old. At this point in time, more than at any other, we have many more people over 65 than we do under-16s. This is a problem if the late night industry continues to focus exclusively on a very narrow (and dwindling) 18-24 demographic.

Not surprisingly, this particular issue is now beginning to exercise the business minds of those strategists in our sector. After all it is fine to use sophisticated marketing campaigns to target a large potential customer base in the traditional late night demographic if they exist, but what if they don’t? The answer is not a simple one.

One of the reasons operators in towns and city centres are competing for an ever-decreasing number of customers relies on the perceived (and sometimes real) issues that older (i.e. post-25) customers have with their towns and city centres. When you’re 18 or 19 getting home from a night out maybe a bit of an ordeal (either standing in a long cab queue or braving the night bus) but customers will put up with it. Fast forward six or seven years to when these self-same individuals get to their mid-20s and by this point the experience of having been stranded in towns and cities many times can lead them to make alternative arrangements when they are socialising.

A growing desire to have people round for dinner, or to watch telly (now handily geared to a younger audience), to order a takeaway or to go out locally is now for many much more attractive.
This is why BEDA’s Dispersal Policy has been so widely read and adopted by industry and beyond. The policy lays some common sense suggestions to operators and to planners about how they can improve systems to get people safely home. As we enter the very busy Christmas period it may be useful to revisit some of these key suggestions:

1. Promote safety on leaving, for example through operating a concierge service and providing a safe place for customers to wait for taxis (particularly lone females).

2. Advertise reliable services by providing free phone numbers for licensed mini-cabs and details of nearby taxi ranks, bus timetables or other local transport networks.

3. Agree an operating policy with local private and public hire vehicles, for example banning the sounding of horns after 11pm.

4. Discuss with the council the location of taxi ranks to ensure they are easily accessible without causing bottlenecks outside venues.

5. Consider, in discussion with the police and council, the use of stewards to act as marshalls at bus stops and taxi ranks.

6. Work with the local authority and transport providers to agree bus routes, stops and timetables.
Local authorities now recognise that if the only group socialising in towns and city centres on the weekend are the 18-24s then that is entirely the kind of behaviour you get. That may sound a little simplistic and even fogeyish, but it is also a well-accepted argument that, as individuals, for the most part, we get more sensible with age.

I’m not advocating that operators lay on Christmas coach trips from the retirement homes to nightclubs, nor do we start targeting the oldest swingers in town, or start serving tea and fancy biscuits rather than upmarket lager, but clearly from a business argument, as well as a disorder argument, the proposition for a wider age range in late night venues seems a compelling one.

Words: Paul Smith (Executive Director of BEDA)

From: December 2007 Issue

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