The complication with an arch is rarely the licence. It is the lawful planning use of the building, which is a separate question decided by a different department.
Arches, units and studios
North London Venue Guide Arches, units and studios
The rail corridors through Hackney, Haringey and Tottenham left a long inventory of arches, and the decline of light industry in the same areas left units alongside them. A good number now operate as studios, workshops, breweries and event spaces.
They are attractive for obvious reasons: volume, no fixed seating, no residential floor above, and a look that costs nothing to achieve. The complications are real but they are not the ones people expect.
Planning use comes before licensing
Every building has a lawful use for planning purposes. An arch whose lawful use is storage, or light industry, is not automatically permitted to operate as a venue, and holding a premises licence does not settle the question. Licensing and planning are separate regimes administered by separate teams, and compliance with one is not a defence to the other.
In practice, established venues in this category have either obtained planning permission for their use, or operate within a use class that accommodates it, or rely on a lawful development certificate. Some operate on none of those and are exposed.
The question to ask is direct: does the building have planning permission for event use, or a certificate of lawful use. A venue that has been through the process will answer readily, because it took time and money and they remember it.
The risk to a hirer is not theoretical. Enforcement or a planning refusal can close a space between your booking and your date, and a hire agreement that does not address what happens when the venue cannot perform leaves you with no stated remedy. See hire agreements.
The building itself
Arches are damp, cold and acoustically difficult, and the good ones have spent money on all three.
Heating is the first question in winter and the answer is often portable, which means fuel, noise and a fire risk assessment that accounts for it. Ask what is provided and what it costs.
Acoustics are the second. A brick barrel vault has a long reverberation time and almost no absorption. Speech is hard work in an untreated arch and amplified music can be unpleasant. Venues that have treated the space will say so.
Water and drainage are the third, and they determine whether catering can happen on site or has to arrive finished. Ask where the sinks are, whether there is hot water, and how many toilets there are for your headcount.
Then ask about the access route, because arches are frequently reached across a yard or a service road that is shared, gated and not lit. See access and parking.
Noise, in both directions
Arches transmit sound along the run, so your neighbours are the units either side rather than a house across the street. Where those units are also venues or workshops, the constraint may be mutual and negotiated rather than imposed by condition.
Where residential conversion has arrived nearby, expect the full apparatus of limiters and curfews described on noise and curfews. Recent residential development next to a long-standing arch venue is a common pattern in these corridors and it has changed what several of them can offer.
Studios and galleries
A different proposition from the same category. Photographic and artists' studios and small galleries hire out predictably, are usually clean, warm and well lit, and are usually the most restricted in what they permit: frequently no alcohol sales, often no amplified music, and almost always a hard finish set by a lease.
They are excellent for daytime events, workshops, private views, filming and photography. They are a poor fit for a party, and a studio that says yes to one is worth a second question about what the lease actually permits.
What this category suits
Anything needing volume and a blank room: exhibitions, launches, filming, large seated dinners at trestles, markets, rehearsals. Anything where the aesthetic is part of the point.
What it suits least: events with elderly or less mobile guests, where the access, the floor surface and the temperature all work against you, and events that depend on outdoor space, which arches almost never have.
Published