Berlin Protects Clubs and Nightlife—Why Doesn’t London?

In 2013, a construction team from Britain’s railway maintenance showed up at Cable—a nightclub nestled under the arches of London Bridge—and cut through its metal shutters, forcibly taking possession of it to make way for new station development. The club’s devastated owner, Euan Johnston, had been assured that the planned redevelopment would not affect his venue. But he says, Network Rail “simply changed their minds,” and that was that.

The image of Network Rail forcibly slicing their way through the doors of a beloved club is a perfect encapsulation of the brutal treatment London’s nightlife has endured over the years. Local councils, noise complaints, and greedy developers have forced multiple closures. London lost over half its clubs in the ten years between 2005 and 2015. The problem is so dire that the charity organization Nesta even created an interactive map for keeping track of the closures.