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UK’s worst town for night out revealed – and it has famous history
The town where David Brent had naff nights out in The Office is the UK’s worst place for clubbing.
Slough – backdrop to the BBC comedy – has just 4.4 nightclubs, bars and eateries per 10,000 people, says a report.
Wernham Hogg manager David, played by Ricky Gervais, 61, took his long-suffering staff on disastrous benders to venues including ‘Chasers’ and ‘New York, New York’, “the nightclub that never sleeps” – despite closing at 1am.
READ MORE: Bloke, 82, barred from favourite pub over ‘catastrophic misunderstanding’
The Berkshire town was famously slammed by poet Sir John Betjeman, who wrote: “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!”
Betjeman’s fury was sparked by the ugliness of Slough Trading Estate, the location for the show’s fictional paper firm.
Slough languishes behind Brighton, the best city to paint the town red, with the East Sussex resort boasting 24.6 venues per 10,000 population.
Basildon in Essex is the second worst, with 5.1 licensed premises, followed by Bracknell, Berks (5.2), Salford, Greater Manchester (6.1) and Chatham, Kent (6.2).
But Bath in Somerset (22.7), York (21.8), Chester (21.6) and Shrewsbury, Shrops (19.4) all rank high for revellers.
The report by Public First says: “To quantify nightlife vibrancy across the country and establish where is evolving and where is struggling, we have constructed the Night Out Index.
“This captures the number of licensed restaurants, pubs, bars and clubs per 10,000 people living across major towns and cities in England and Wales.
“The index ranges from a score of 24.6 in Brighton – which points to the best night out of any place captured in our index – to just 4.4 in Slough, which languishes at the bottom of the index.”
Some 46% of major towns have seen an improvement in nightlife but 54% have witnessed a deterioration.
Leeds, Liverpool and Halifax saw around a 20% rise in the per capita number of night-time sites between 2012 and 2022, while Rochdale, Mansfield and Dudley saw the biggest declines.
Scott Corfe, director of data and modelling at Public First, said: “Our Night Out Index reveals big differences in the health of the night-time economy in different parts of the country, as well as some major changes in the make-up of the night-time economy with a shift towards restaurants.
“It’s encouraging to see the night-time economy contributing to ‘levelling up’ in the north of England, particularly with the greatly improved nightlife scenes in Leeds, Liverpool and Halifax.
“However, with the Night Out Index declining in over half of towns and cities over the past decade, much needs to be done to strengthen the night-time economy elsewhere.”
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