The night works better united.
UNight joins up the people who run, regulate, protect and enjoy the night-time economy. Advocacy, safety, standards and delivery, connected by a team that can walk into every one of those rooms and be believed, from a school assembly to a licensing committee to Parliament. And the same craft travels: relationships, evidence and advocacy for any organisation that needs doors opened and rooms aligned.
years front line in the night-time economy, hospitality and events
years as a youth worker, where the safeguarding instinct comes from
years in elected office, including licensing and planning
sides of the committee table, which is why the evidence is built the way it is
A sector of specialists, missing its connector
The night-time economy is full of excellent organisations, and each is excellent at exactly one thing. The gap is not another specialist. It is the seat between them.
The advocates
The campaigning voices that speak for the sector to government. They speak, but they do not deliver on the ground.
The deliverers
The consultancies and specialist solicitors who win licences and run schemes properly. They deliver, but rarely campaign, and they seldom teach.
The standards
The accreditations that benchmark well-run venues and districts. Vital, but a standard is a scheme, not a person. Nobody rings a benchmark for advice.
The causes
The safety movements, above all around women's safety, that carry moral force but need credible carriers into venues, schools and committee rooms.
Every one of them works better joined up, and somebody has to do the joining. That is the seat UNight was built to fill, and it is why the company is called what it is called.
Advocacy and lobbying, not just sales
Our experience spans youth work, elected office and senior partnership roles across hospitality, festivals, sport and events. What connects it all is simple: we bring together organisations that do not naturally collaborate, align them around shared objectives, and leave the businesses involved working better than we found them.
Networking and advocacy
We go into spaces, open doors and champion a brand, cause or product on its own terms. This goes beyond sales into the lobbying realm: genuine representation, carried out with credibility, that wins allies and shifts opinion.
Communication at every level
The same message lands differently in a youth club and a ministerial meeting. We adapt the story without losing its substance, so the organisations we represent are understood by everyone who matters to them.
Strategy that moves things forward
We map exactly who needs to be spoken to, commercially and politically, then work the plan until conversations become commitments.
The same conversation, carried credibly, all the way up
- A young person in a youth club or a school assembly
- Venue teams, promoters and door staff at two in the morning
- Councils, BIDs, police teams and licensing committees
- Senior ministers and chief executives of multimillion pound companies
One organisation, connected arms
This site is home to our partnership, licensing and public affairs work. Our schools programme and our accreditation programme each have dedicated homes of their own, built on the same methodology and the same people.
Licensing evidence and expert witness
UNight InsightNight-time economy assessments for venues, districts, BIDs and councils. Evidence packs and expert evidence in support of licensing applications, hearings and appeals, grounded in the licensing objectives and the National Licensing Policy Framework. Where a matter needs solicitors and counsel, we work alongside them as the sector experts.
Public affairs, partnerships and engagement
UNight EngageRepresenting night-time economy interests with MPs, local authorities, regulators and policy makers, shaping policy locally and nationally, and building the partnerships and sponsorships that turn warm relationships into long-term, values-aligned commitments. We speak both languages: the operator at one in the morning and the committee room at ten the next day.
Tours and live events
UNight On TourTour and event management, brand activation and multi-agency planning across festivals, venues and live environments, including the safety and welfare side that keeps a licence intact.
UNight Schools
We teach the awareness that keeps young people safer at night: how to look after yourself and your friends, how to recognise spiking and the behaviours behind violence against women and girls, and what to do about both. For sixth forms, colleges and universities, built with police and safeguarding input. A dedicated Schools site is on its way.
Ask us about SchoolsAccreditation and training
Venue accreditation and training for safer, more inclusive nights, assessed rather than self-declared, and built to stand up in front of a licensing committee. Coming soon: this programme is in development now.
Ask us about itWinning late hours in one of the country’s toughest licensing environments
A national brand wanted later trading in London’s busiest late-night district, in an area with a cumulative impact policy and objections on the table. We worked as part of the team that built the evidence case: night-time economy context, precedent mapping, dispersal analysis and the safety and welfare argument the licensing objectives actually turn on.
The method is repeatable. Map an operator’s estate against its licence position, identify the revenue trapped behind an early close, then win the hours with evidence rather than assertion.
Safety programmes that stand up to scrutiny
Across a multi-venue hospitality portfolio we built multi-stakeholder engagement models linking venues with universities, Students’ Unions, police teams and local authorities, improving safety, attendance and commercial performance at the same time.
Those relationships are what a venue leans on when something goes wrong, and what a licensing committee looks for when deciding whether an operator can be trusted with more.
Teaching the night before people go out in it
Awareness sessions on spiking, alcohol and violence against women and girls, delivered to student and sixth form audiences in real venues rather than classrooms, and built with police and safeguarding input.
The same content trains the venue teams who have to respond, which is what turns a poster on a wall into something that actually works at one in the morning.
Making the case in Parliament
Representing sector interests with MPs and policy makers, and four years of elected office at Canterbury City Council across housing, planning, licensing and community services. We have sat on both sides of the committee table, which is precisely why the evidence we put in front of one is built the way it is.
The night-time economy is not an abstraction
It is a specific street, at a specific hour, with specific people on it. Every assessment, every evidence pack and every hearing we have been part of comes back to what is actually happening on the ground at one in the morning.
That is why we still work the nights as well as the meetings. You cannot unite rooms you have stopped standing in.
The ecosystem, by name
This is what joining up looks like in practice. Advocacy, delivery, standards and causes: the organisations we rate, recommend to clients and are proud to work alongside where our paths cross.
Six Till Six
The UK's leading leisure, hospitality and night-time economy consultancy, led by Sylvia Oates: Ask for Angela Ambassador, Companion of the BII and the licensing delivery engine behind some of the hardest-won licences in the country.
sixtillsix.com →
Poppleston Allen
The UK's largest firm of specialist licensing solicitors, Band 1 ranked, and the legal firepower we would want in the room when a matter needs solicitors and counsel at appeal or review.
popall.co.uk →
Ask for Angela
The national codeword safety initiative: a customer who feels unsafe asks staff for Angela and is helped discreetly. Free for venues, trusted by the public, and at its best when staff are properly trained to respond, which is where we come in.
askforangela.co.uk →
Best Bar None
The Home Office backed national accreditation for well-run licensed venues, assessed across management, training, safety and community. We prepare venues so accreditation is a formality rather than a gamble.
bestbarnone.com →
Hopsy
The all-in-one hospitality compliance app: checklists, incident logs, food safety records and rotas in one place. The daily digital record that protects a licence, and the quiet hero of every review defence.
hopsy.co.uk →
UN Women UK
The UK national committee for UN Women, working for gender equality and the safety of women and girls, including in public spaces and nightlife. Their work sets the standard the whole sector should be reaching for.
unwomenuk.org →
Kent Invicta Chamber
Kent's accredited chamber of commerce, connecting and championing businesses across the county we call home. The first door we point Kent operators towards when they want a stronger local network.
kentinvictachamber.co.uk →
Institute of Licensing
The professional body for licensing practitioners across the UK, and where regulators, operators and advisers sharpen each other. We are members, and the IoL's training and community underpin the evidence work we do.
instituteoflicensing.org →
BII
The British Institute of Innkeeping: the professional body for the people who actually run pubs and bars, championing licensees with training, support and recognition when the industry too often talks over them.
bii.org →
National Pub Watch
The voluntary network behind local Pub Watch schemes: operators sharing intelligence and standing together against crime and disorder. Stronger together is not a slogan here, it is the operating model.
nationalpubwatch.org.uk →
ATCM
The Association of Town and City Management: the place-leadership body behind Purple Flag, supporting the people who run town and city centres by day and after dark.
atcm.org →
Cask Marque
The independent, inspected accreditation for beer quality: the sign of a great pint in thousands of pubs. Proof that standards raise trade rather than burden it.
cask-marque.co.uk →
CAMRA
The Campaign for Real Ale: the consumer movement that has protected pubs, brewing heritage and drinkers' choice for more than fifty years, and one of the great examples of ordinary customers organising to save what they love.
camra.org.uk →
The LMA
The League Managers Association: the collective voice of professional football managers, and a masterclass in how a members' organisation pairs advocacy with genuinely world-class leadership development.
leaguemanagers.com →Endorsement on this page runs one way. These are organisations whose work we rate and recommend. Their appearance here does not imply that they endorse UNight U.K. Ltd, and each scheme and organisation named remains independent and owned by its respective organisation.
Writing on the sector
Plain-English reads on the policy and licensing changes that affect operators, districts and the people who regulate them.
What the National Licensing Policy Framework actually changed
The November 2025 framework shifted the ground under every late-hours application. What it says, what it means for operators, and where it does not help.
Read →What Purple Flag’s five themes actually ask for
Wellbeing, movement, appeal, place and policy. A plain-English read of what assessors look for, and where most towns lose marks.
Read →The revenue trapped behind an 11pm close
Across the major quick-service brands a large share of sites shut before the night-time economy around them has finished. That is a licensing question, not a trading one.
Read →Campaigns we stand behind
VAT's The Problem
The campaign for a fairer VAT rate for hospitality. Pubs, bars, restaurants and venues carry one of the highest VAT burdens in Europe, and the case for change is strong, evidenced and growing. Worth your attention and your signature.
vatstheproblem.co.ukMartyn's Law
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 is now law, and venues and events need to understand what it asks of them. It exists because of the campaigning of Figen Murray, whose son Martyn Hett was killed in the Manchester Arena attack. We help venues prepare, and we point everyone to her work.
figenmurray.co.ukTake something away
No forms, no gate. If it is useful, use it.
Capability statement
Two pages on what UNight delivers, who it works with and how an engagement runs. Written for procurement, BID boards and instructing solicitors.
Download PDFBook a conversation
Thirty minutes on a Thursday, no charge and no pitch. Bring the problem and we will work out whether there is something here worth doing.
Find a timeWhere the work actually happens
Policy forums, Westminster receptions, student venues at midnight, award nights and high streets on a Friday. Showing up consistently in these places is most of the job.
Photographs show Matthew at industry events, awards ceremonies, receptions and delivery. Other people pictured are fellow attendees, guests and colleagues. Their appearance does not imply any endorsement of UNight U.K. Ltd or its services.
Matthew Jones-Roberts
Director of Public Affairs and Strategic Partnerships, UNight U.K. Ltd. Networker, advocate and strategic partnership builder, based in the South East and London and working across the UK and worldwide. Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn.
- Represented night-time economy interests with MPs, local authorities and policy makers, shaping policy at local and national level
- Provided expert evidence in support of licensing appeals and applications, drawing on deep knowledge of the licensing objectives and how venues and districts really operate
- Served four years as an elected councillor at Canterbury City Council across housing, planning, licensing and community services
- Built multi-stakeholder safety and engagement models linking venues with universities, police teams and local authorities across a multi-venue hospitality portfolio
- Member of the Institute of Licensing
- Earlier career in youth work with Kent County Council and Medway Council, and a school governor from 2022 to 2025
Straight answers first
What does UNight actually do?
We join up the night-time economy. The sector has campaigning voices, specialist deliverers, accreditation standards and safety causes, and each is excellent at one thing. Our job is moving between all of those rooms, speaking each one's language and aligning them around a shared outcome: a licence won, a district made safer, a programme delivered in schools, a partnership that actually holds. We also bring the same craft to organisations outside the night-time economy that need doors opened and rooms aligned.
What is a night-time economy assessment?
A structured review of how a venue, district or town centre performs after dark: safety, management, the physical and social environment, governance and how well operators and authorities work together, measured against recognised standards. You get a plain-English report with evidence you can put in front of a board, a BID, a council or a licensing committee.
Can you give evidence at a licensing hearing?
Yes. We prepare evidence packs and provide expert evidence in support of licensing applications, hearings and appeals, grounded in the licensing objectives and the National Licensing Policy Framework. Where a matter needs solicitors and counsel, we work alongside them as the sector experts rather than in their place.
Who do you work with?
Hospitality operators, national brands and franchisees, Business Improvement Districts, local authorities, police forces, licensing solicitors, universities, schools and community organisations. If another organisation is the right answer for your problem, we will say so and make the introduction.
How does the free intro call work?
Thirty minutes with Matthew Jones-Roberts, our director, on a Thursday between 10am and 2pm. No charge and no pitch: bring the problem and we will work out together whether there is something worth doing. If there is not, we will tell you that too. You can book directly on this page.
Where do you work?
We are based in the South East and London and work across the UK and worldwide, delivering assessments, evidence, education and partnership work wherever the venues, districts and committee rooms are.
Thirty minutes, Thursdays, no charge
Thirty minutes with Matthew Jones-Roberts, our director. Pick a Thursday and a time between 10am and 2pm and we will confirm by email, usually the same day. If none of these work, ring us and we will find something.
What happens on the call
You tell us what you are trying to move and what is in the way. We tell you honestly whether it is something we can help with, roughly what it would involve and roughly what it would cost.
If the answer is that you do not need us, we will say so and point you at whoever you do need. That happens more often than you would think and it has never cost us anything.
Calls run thirty minutes. Bring the detail, it makes the half hour worth considerably more.
Tell us what you are trying to move
Whether it is later hours, a safer district, a programme in schools or a partnership that has stalled, the first conversation is free and usually clarifies more than you expect.
Based in the South East and London. Working across the UK and worldwide.
Or find us on LinkedIn.