The Caterer interview: Alex Claridge, night time economy advisor for the West Midlands

One of the few ways I could deal with the weight of the stress of the pandemic was to try to do things beyond the four walls that were my immediate kingdom. So I set up a petition, to support the UK's hospitality industry through the coronavirus crisis and it gained more than £360,000 signatures, which led to me having these conversations with people involved in policy and politics, neither of which are areas I have any great fondness or understanding for. Then, when they decided to create the role, I was asked to interview for it.

I was super on the fence and in some ways I still am super on the fence, but I feel like I'm at a point in my career where there's a level of obligation to do things and not just look on.

Tell us more about the role

It's a maiden voyage for this role, so there's no template. The creation of the role is, I think, shorthand for recognising that it's an area that needs a certain level of focus and attention.

The advice I received from Sacha [Lord] in Greater Manchester and Carly [Heath] in Bristol was that in the first year you just need to try and figure out what the role should look like in your region with the resources you have. My job is to try and assemble a million different voices. Night time economy is an incredibly broad term and a lot of people don't fully understand it. You have wonderful contradictions, where a lot of hospitality is obviously the night time economy, but there's also the hospitality that is open during the day time. You have to try and navigate this. It would be preposterous to say, "well, I'm not interested in what you're up to until 6pm".

I'm also trying to bring unity to the sector.

A lot of people I talk to are cynical and I understand why – I'm hardly Mr Sunshine myself – but I feel an obligation to try and make sure my net contribution to the sector in my hometown is more good than bad.

I'm trying to take the passion and the anger and the frustration that, at times, I feel just as acutely as businesses, and translate that into an entirely different language. As someone who in his early career was relatively well-known for putting his foot in it on Twitter with the delicacy of a rock, it's a very different way of doing things.

I want to make sure that over this two-year term we can work out a way to effect positive change, or at least positive ideas. That's where the bar is for me, and I don't think it's sexy. Right now, pre-general election and mayoral elections and with Birmingham having its own financial turmoil, I'm not going to be organising a parade where we shoot money out of cannons into the crowd, but if I can put some shape to this role and create a working rhetoric, I think that's what's needed. In terms of having a seat at the table, what discussions are you able to get involved in?

In theory, pretty much everything. I've been given an official title and that gives me a mandate to reach out and have conversations, and I couldn't do that before as just some random bearded bloke. It doesn't always mean I'll be listened to or that the conversations will necessarily find an audience, but the way I see it is that we need to be present and campaign so we're not just shouting into the void.

It sounds like a little step, but I think we sometimes have a real problem with how emotive and angry – justifiably or otherwise – the sector can be, because the people who could actually be useful to us will use that to dismiss us. I think that's what I'm trying to do, to be that conduit. It's an education piece for me, but I'm trying to push that more widely across the region; to say this is actually how things work and maybe we'd like them to work differently. If we want this outcome, this is where we need to go.

What will you focus on?

I think it's a unique time to answer that question, because there is a rich smorgasbord of things that are making this a really tough sector. I am a strong advocate for tax reform. I think it's top of the agenda for a lot of business owners and the current system is structurally broken. If we want to try and give this sector energy again and give it optimism and encourage people to go into it, it's going to have to become a fair playing field. There's been a heavy discourse around that, matched only by the total reluctance of central government to engage in any meaningful way. They are not interested.

During the pandemic, when we had reduced VAT for lots of these businesses, everyone had a glimpse of how their life might be if we had taxation more in line with Europe and, unsurprisingly, people quite liked being able to invest in their businesses, create more jobs and look out for their teams. I believe that if we take a long-term position, it is far better to create an environment where businesses stand a higher probability of success.

Further down the pecking order there's still huge concern around the continued impact of Brexit on both employment and the supply chain. We've also got the midweek problem with people working from home, which certainly in the Midlands is being felt acutely, and then there are questions about how we regenerate areas.

One thing I'm really passionate about is music and nightlife, because that is an area where we've perhaps taken some steps backwards. There are loads of obstacles to doing that around planning, so it's about asking how we create spaces where people can do all these cultural activities that add value.

How has hospitality and nightlife changed in the West Midlands?

In short, at the moment, it's going to the dogs. Maybe I'm not supposed to say that and I'm supposed to be a beacon of positivity, but I'm not a politician and I don't really give a shit about dressing it up.

I think certainly in the past 12 months the cumulative effects of years of a constantly moving landscape has meant fatigue is a massive problem. The entire country is in a really interesting space. People haven't got the same amount of money that they used to, so they aren't going out as much and that puts a lot of pressure on all manner of businesses.

Along with that we're seeing closures far too frequently across the entire region. Coventry and Wolverhampton are primed for development and there's so much opportunity, but everything has stalled. People aren't making decisions and they aren't moving to invest.

How have you responded to the Crooked House fire, which has been a very emotive issue for people across the country?

If you want to understand the West Midlands: you can come for our public services, you can come for anything you want, but don't touch our pubs.

We've got real concerns over the way development is interacting with heritage and cultural and hospitality assets. There's a whole thread of how to better preserve the heritage we have, and I think sometimes we've not been the best at recognising what we have until it's gone.

The fire was a really visceral, timely reminder of what happens if attention is not given to particular areas, and Crooked House is a gateway into a conversation that needs to be heard. Should we have a conversation about why pubs structurally cannot be viable right now in this climate and what needs to change? Because if you take it down to a basic principle, do we want pubs to exist? I think the answer is yes, so we're going have to work through that detail.

We've started this piece around heritage pubs and that's linked really nicely into grassroots music. These pubs and community spaces are really important, particularly in the West Midlands. If you look at Desi pubs, they are probably one of the strongest areas of hospitality in the West Midlands. Desi pubs are brilliant. In terms of regeneration, they're community spaces that are absolutely rammed and people use them as a kind of third place. They bring people together, the food's great and it's incredibly affordable. My job is to sit in a meeting and flag up these examples to show there are a million ways to reinvent what we already have.

Birmingham Council has been declared bankrupt and there's a lot of uncertainty as to what its financial future will entail. What conversations are you having around this?

I think the worst thing is we just don't know.

I can certainly speculate and what concerns me is if we are going to see a sale of assets. I have no problem with realising the value of brown belt land or the rest of it, but if we're looking at potentially buildings or property that have real cultural and community value, I'm not convinced it would be a good look for the city to give over those spaces.

We've said there shouldn't be an increase in costs passed on to businesses and we don't know whether there will be – it could just be an unfounded worry – but I think until a little bit more information is out, I'm going to remain on high alert.

It's a shame, really, because Birmingham had a fantastic couple of years and lots of great things had happened and now when you Google the city the news about the council is what you see. But this is a city that, if nothing else, is pretty resilient. The city will prevail; it's is much bigger than its council.

How do you think the industry can come together to push for the changes you've highlighted?

I think we need to not be so protective over saying how we actually are, primarily because one of the things that makes it hard to push for change for hospitality is that there's not that much data. Businesses don't want to actually tell anybody how they're doing, but if you're trying to make a serious argument to try and push for reform or change, they will ask if you've got data.

Honesty is great and in thinking about what we share we need to think about the purpose. Am I doing this because I want other people who might be in a similar position to feel less alone? Is it because I want to have a dialogue with my guests? Or are you trying to assemble more of a critical argument to take to your friendly neighbourhood night time economy advisor, so it can go to government? They're all different needs.

Does there needs to be a reassessment in the way the industry is talking to government and local authorities?

I think the industry needs to be unified and deliver a unified message, not lots of disparate conversations. It needs to be evidence- and data-based, which I know does not sound cool, I get it, but I've started to go into these meetings and the only way, regrettably, that things get done is to make cold, hard, clinical arguments. And the only way they're going to be delivered is through a repeated, hammering home of evidence-based arguments. While historically I've been the first to get into a conflict, that doesn't actually tend to deliver anything. You just get maligned.