Embed from Getty Images
If we believe in giving everyone the platform to flourish and live their unique version of a best life, then enabling music, and musicians, to thrive in our local areas is an unmissable part of that platform.

Does a day go by when you don’t listen to music?

On your phone? In a movie? In a bar or coffee shop? In your place of worship? We use music to celebrate milestones, commemorate lost loved ones, pump ourselves up, and to find ourselves when we’re lost.

But the dedicated geniuses who make all that possible are seeing their income streams disappear one by one. Losing CD income to streaming. Losing touring income to Brexit. Losing gig income to venue closures.

An amendment successfully adopted at the recent Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton helped to embed music as a major positive sphere of influence for local government – where Liberal Democrats are so well placed to be champions.

UK Music created the Local Music Action Charter to help councils develop and strengthen music in their communities. To work across the multiple musical touchpoints available in community centres, out in the environment, in partnership with local businesses, with venues, in planning and licencing, schools, and in care.

Music is deeply political in so many ways. The story of Fiona Fey is one example we’re able to share with her permission.

Fiona was forced out of her home in Lewisham after being served a noise abatement notice for practicing her instruments – because in the council’s own words, “all music is a nuisance, no matter the volume or time of day.”

Case law supports her right to practice at home during the day – but she couldn’t afford to take them to court – so she just moved.

In Manchester, Night and Day was forced into a hugely expensive legal battle because the council’s planning team failed to properly enforce the “agent of change” principle on a new block of flats next door. The flats were required to soundproof. They didn’t.

It should have been the developer who was held accountable – not the venue.

And in Brent, where Charlie currently sits as a Councillor, there is an ongoing fight over the future of Battery studios. An iconic recording studio where Led Zeppelin, the Kinks, Pink Floyd, and Paul McCartney have all laid down tracks.

If we want to stop history repeating itself – we need to speak up.

Last month a committee scrutinizing the new culture strategy in Brent had to be reminded that there was nothing in the strategy about licensing, nuisance, or planning policies.

As a musician himself, two pubs Charlie has played in for years have stopped regular live music recently. Since the amendment was passed, another venue is ceasing live music entirely.  They can’t afford the overheads. That’s income lost for musicians and pubs.

And musicians are increasingly losing work from session recording and composing to AI.

What happens to the music industry when becoming a professional musician is just not viable?

The recent conference motion to Make Music Matter did a great job of building on our existing policy, especially on the many protections we need in the age of AI – that should be a tool that amplifies the creativity of musicians, enabling them to do more, lowering barriers, and helping them to thrive. It must not be allowed to replace them. It must not become yet another way for the biggest companies to make more money, at the expense of the rest of us.

UK Music also emphasises how local music ecosystems can help people of all ages into employment, education, and training in their own areas.

That joined-up grassroots approach will also help those who want to explore the world with their music – and make it more likely that they will then maintain a strong link with their local area while doing so… if that area was core to their journey.

Councils can turn their local music ecosystems into powerful platforms for their people and communities to flourish – with Local Music Charters tailored to their communities that include:

• Appointing a Local Music Champion and working with musicians, venues, promoters and community organisations to develop their local music ecosystem.
• Embedding music into local plans recognising its role in supporting thriving town centres, the night-time economy and culture-led tourism.
• Protecting and expanding grassroots music spaces, including by actively upholding the Agent of Change principle and by bringing empty or underused spaces into cultural use where practical.
• Widening access to music and supporting community and grassroots music activity, particularly for young people and those from underrepresented or less advantaged backgrounds.
• Supporting local pathways into music and creative careers through Music Hubs, education providers, local employers, and skills strategies.

Local councils up and down the country are capable of either making – or breaking – the music industry. And with thousands of councillors across the country, we can make a real difference.

Let’s go back to our local councils, bang the drums, blow the trumpets, do whatever is needed to see councils step up – because music really does matter.