Campaign launched to challenge Edinburgh strip club licensing

The findings are presented in a new report, Life near Strip Clubs: Women’s Voices from UK Cities, launched in Parliament yesterday to coincide with the start of a country-wide campaign, ‘No More Strip Clubs’.

The report draws on research involving over 700 women in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Manchester. It details the day-to-day measures women build into their lives to avoid strip clubs, which are licensed by councils as “sexual entertainment venues” (SEVs). 

Findings include: 

• In Edinburgh, a majority (53 per cent) of women surveyed near strip clubs oppose them, with supportive views standing at just seven per cent. 
  Most women said they feel ‘unsafe’, ‘vulnerable’ and ‘horrible’ around strip clubs, with some reporting harassment by men outside the venues.
• Three strip clubs operate within close proximity of each other in Edinburgh city centre, in a cluster known locally as the ‘pubic triangle’ - a term which the women surveyed described as deeply inappropriate and “emblematic” of misogyny. Women described how crossing to avoid one strip club brings them directly outside another: “You have to go there or go around the long way.”
• Local women described how the narrow pavements and railings outside the venues force pedestrians into close proximity with intoxicated men outside the clubs.
• The clubs are located near student accommodation and several students shared their discomfort and hypervigilance when walking past the venues and the daily precautions they need to take, including messaging each other: “Can you hear the drunk men outside? Everyone, make sure your doors are locked.”

Dr Laura Favaro, the report’s author, said: “The findings show that the impacts of strip clubs extend far beyond the venues themselves. They create environments in which women feel unsafe, restricted and devalued. The research demonstrates that these are not isolated experiences, but recur across UK cities.”

The report concludes that the continued licensing of strip clubs cannot be reconciled with councils’ equality duties or with wider commitments to tackling male violence against women. It calls for support and alternative pathways for the women working in strip clubs alongside the closure of them. 

FiLiA’s new campaign, No More Strip Clubs, will include a Campaigner’s Toolkit to help women object to strip club licensing in their local areas.

FiLiA CEO Lisa-Marie Taylor said: “This research raises uncomfortable questions about local authorities’ licensing failures and neglect of their equality duties, exposing the gap between what the law says and what women actually experience on the ground. 

“The government’s 2025 Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Action Plan committed to reviewing the SEV licensing regime - but only to close loopholes about which premises need a licence, not to question whether they should be licensed at all. This research makes that bigger conversation unavoidable.”