Glasgow City Council’s leader has announced the appointment of a night mayor to “co-ordinate the late night licensed trade activity in the city, including pubs and clubs.”

Council leader Susan Aitken is reported to have told the city council’s Local Licensing Forum that the appointment would follow the same model as Manchester which is a model which is “emerging as the one that is most relevant for Glasgow”.

She said: “We were clear from the outset that if Glasgow doesn’t find that kind of model, we risk falling behind other cities who have.”

According to local reports Ms Aitken described the ‘night mayor’ title used in other cities as a “bad pun”, adding that, as Scotland doesn’t have mayors, the working group were more likely to go with ‘night time commissioner’. They have also considered ‘night tsar’.

Glasgow’s commissioner would be “an ambassador for the licensed trade in the city, who is able to connect with decision makers”.

Ms Aitken said the idea arose after a number of venue owners contacted her for informal talks about the state of the industry.