Government Sparks Anger by Excluding Nightclubs, Grassroots Electronic and Recorded Music Spaces From Rates Relief, Says NTIA
The Government’s latest Business Rates Relief scheme has delivered a serious blow to Britain’s night-time economy, explicitly excluding nightclubs, grassroots electronic music venues and recorded music spaces, and reinforcing growing concern that electronic music and counter-cultural spaces continue to be overlooked in national policy.
At a time when the UK has already lost more than a third of its nightclubs, ministers have introduced a relief package that leaves surviving venues facing higher costs, fewer businesses to share the burden, and no meaningful support, a decision that risks accelerating closures across the sector.
Fewer venues, higher taxes, no relief – Nightclub figures reveal the scale of the imbalance:
• Nightclubs (VOA 199/303) down 32% since 2017
• Total Rateable Value: £69.4m, up from £65.4m in 2017
• Average RV per nightclub: £56,000, up from £35,725 in 2017
• A 56% increase, despite one-third fewer venues remaining
In effect, a shrinking sector is now paying more overall, while being excluded from the very relief schemes designed to protect hospitality, culture and town-centre economies.
Beyond nightclubs, the continued exclusion of recorded music environments, including DJ-led venues, listening bars, grassroots electronic music spaces and hybrid cultural venues, is especially alarming.
These spaces are core infrastructure for the UK’s music ecosystem. They support artist development, local employment, night-time economies and one of the country’s most successful cultural exports. Yet once again, recorded music-led venues fall outside eligibility criteria, echoing the pandemic-era failures when electronic music was excluded from Cultural Recovery Fund support.
Despite assurances that those mistakes would not be repeated, the same policy blind spots have returned.
Statement from Michael Kill, CEO, Night Time Industries Association:
“The decision to exclude nightclubs, grassroots electronic and recorded music spaces from business rates relief is a surreal decision, and could not have expected anything less than anger given the last two budgets.”
“Electronic music spaces are not optional extras in the cultural landscape. They are talent incubators that develop the next generation of artists, DJs, promoters and creative entrepreneurs. They are where careers are built, scenes are formed and global exports are born. To exclude them is to undermine the future of the UK’s music industry at its foundations.”
“We have already lost over a third of the UK’s nightclubs, yet the venues that remain are being charged higher business rates than ever, with fewer businesses left to carry the burden and no access to relief. This is not targeted support, it is policy that actively accelerates decline.”
“What has happened to the Government’s SME strategy? What has happened to the industrial strategy that repeatedly recognised the importance of creative pipelines and cultural infrastructure? Today, those commitments are nowhere to be seen.”
“This patchwork approach to business rates is chaotic policy administration at best and sends no signal of confidence to businesses, workers or investors. It suggests a Government that neither understands nor values one of the UK’s most successful cultural and economic sectors.”
“If this position is not urgently corrected, we will see further closures, lost talent and long-term damage to Britain’s global cultural standing. Nightlife and electronic music are not fringe activities, they are central to who we are and to the future of the creative economy.”
The repeated exclusion of electronic and recorded music spaces raises a fundamental question:
While traditional arts and live performance venues continue to receive recognition, the spaces that gave rise to globally influential genres, from house and techno to jungle, drum & bass, garage and grime – remain absent from policy frameworks.
This is no longer an oversight. It is a systemic failure to value contemporary cultural expression.
A lesson still not learned. The loss of over one-third of UK nightclubs should have prompted urgent reform. Instead, this latest policy risks locking in decline, pushing more venues to closure, exporting talent overseas and hollowing out night-time economies across towns and cities.
The UK is a global leader in electronic music and nightlife culture. Domestically, however, it is being taxed, sidelined and excluded.
We rose before, and we will again. The sector fought for recognition during the pandemic and forced itself into the national conversation. That fight is not over.
Because once again, counter-culture is under attack, and once again, the consequences will be felt by communities, workers, artists and audiences across the country.
If nightclubs, grassroots electronic music venues and recorded music spaces continue to be excluded, the UK risks dismantling one of its most powerful cultural exports, one policy decision at a time.