A livelier Glasgow after dark is finally on the agenda, but transport, licensing and years of neglect still stand in the way, writes Herald columnist Marissa MacWhirter.

Wellness comes in many forms. Sometimes it means spending an hour sliding around a Pilates reformer. Sometimes it involves a tequila soda and a dancefloor.

Glasgow is nothing without its nightlife. Last week, while our attentions were engulfed in the fallout from the Union Corner fire, the city took its first step in trying to officially heal our broken nighttime economy. It’s better late than never, I guess.

Scotland’s largest city used to feel electric at night. Queues for club nights would wrap around the block, and a taxi cost less than two hours' wages. People from all over would journey to the city to experience the culture after dark.

It’s nothing short of a disgrace that today people feel forced to leave a gig at the Hydro they paid £200 for before an encore just to get home, in the UK's first UNESCO City of Music, for crying out loud. In addition to the weak late-night transport provision, the city has been hamstrung by a restrictive licensing culture, rising operating costs, changing habits post-pandemic, and a city centre model that still treats the night like a public-order problem rather than essential to our culture and civic infrastructure. It is also about the people who work, travel, and keep the city functioning at night – not just the folk out for a good time.

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For far too long, the city has approached nighttime policy like a gym bro obsessed with chest day, jacked up top but teetering on shaky little pin legs. By only paying attention to what happens in the light hours, the city is missing out on a key part of its infrastructure.

This week, however, there has been a happy turn of events. On March 12, the City Administration Committee dug out the leg press and backed a plan to transform Glasgow into a 24-hour nightlife destination. The first steps will see the creation of an independent Night-Time Economy Commission and a dedicated Night-Time Economy (NTE) Officer to help shape life after dark.

Council controls are limited to the budget, planning, and the public realm. The hope is that the new NTE commission and officer will help bridge the gap with SPT, the Glasgow Licensing Board, Police Scotland, the Scottish Government, ScotRail, and bus operators to get a better deal.

Called Nightshift Glasgow, the paper also sets out ambitions around late-night transport, turning George Square into a civic space after dark, opening up the riverside and bolstering the safety of the city at night with things like better lighting and walking routes. It’s the first time I’ve read a council report that was actually nice to look at, so kudos to A Visual Agency.

Days later, SPT proposed new Subway hours that would see the service on Friday and Saturday extended to 12.30am, and (drumroll please) Sunday service extended until 11.30pm instead of the laughable 6pm we currently need to contend with. It is important to note this overdue shakeup has substantial caveats: it’s conditional on the completion of the Subway modernisation programme, which is ongoing and has no firm completion date in sight; the trade unions will need to weigh in on behalf of staff and drivers, and the revised timetable will be on a two-year review basis. Let’s be clear, this is no 24-hour Berlin U-Bahn.

Regardless, this week has been a positive step forward. Together, these developments represent the most coordinated attempt in my memory to address the structural challenges holding Glasgow back. For once, we seem to be saying the right things in the right order, but it would be naïve to think a laundry list of ambitions will be enough. The task now is to move from aspiration to firm commitment.

We are still a long way off from fixing our contracted and fragmented nightlife sector. Scotland lost 34 per cent of its nightclubs between June 2020 and June 2024, while across the UK, one in four late-night venues has closed since 2020.

Take a stroll beneath the Hielaman’s Umbrella, and you will be reminded of how many blows there have been to Scotland’s cultural anchors. Behind the plastic barriers and the rubble of Argyle Street’s future cycle lanes is the ghost of The Arches, soon to become a bowling alley.

Once considered one of the best venues in the world, The Arches closed a decade ago after drug incidents led to the licensing board clawing back its 3am licence. Partying in the guts of the railway didn’t pack the same punch when you were booted out at midnight and custom dried up.

It is great that we are taking these nighttime policy strides now, but I have to wonder if things would have gotten so dire if action had happened sooner.

The reason it didn’t is that what happened to The Arches was a symbol, and other venues like it in the city couldn’t risk the same fate. The licensing culture we have to this day is still haunted by Victorian teetotalism. It’s this attitude that stymies discussion about transforming Glasgow into ‘a city that never sleeps’. That history has shaped and trained the city to see night as something to police, rather than part of the rich tapestry of city life used by workers, audiences, clubbers, and everyone else who exists outside office hours.

For this to work, we need to stop oscillating between two equally useless positions: romanticising nightlife as proof of our urban cool and moralising about nightlife as a source of disorder. The NTE is critical to Glasgow’s culture as a whole and status as a music city. It also encompasses the entire swathe of the population that exists outside of the nine-to-five: healthcare workers, carers, cleansing crews, security guards, hotel and venue staff, taxi drivers, delivery riders, tourists, audiences, shift workers, and the people trying to get home from work or the hospital.

The nine-to-five was designed for an industrial, centralised, and predictable economy. It acts as a way of standardising human time that benefits employers more than people, keeping the economic cycle clean by determining when you work and earn (weekdays) and when you consume (weekends).

But we now live in a digital, always-on world that operates on the backs of shift workers and the gig economy. And nightlife is one of the last clear psychological breaks from the constant, never-ending productivity culture. It’s not a vapid luxury for the lowly hedonist; it’s part of the city’s public infrastructure. It makes the place feel healthy, human, and alive.

Going out with friends, dancing, connecting, and meeting new people is good for the soul. It’s also good for the wellness of the entire city. Scotland’s largest city should not close after dark.

Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1

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