I don't know how we compare to other big cities, like London, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Leeds etc? Because I don't follow scenes there, as there's no immediate chance I'll be punting at these places. I tell you though, I would hate to live out in the sticks or small towns. My recent trip to Torquay unearthed possibly 1 decent sounding WG. There were a few more that sounded OK in near by Exeter and Plymouth. But if I lived somewhere like Torquay I'd probably pack in punting, the situation is that dire! At least we do have quite a few different options now in Brum. Would still like to see more though! Where is the best place to punt?
Yeah, but to be frank about this Torquay has a population of something like 65K whereas Brum has about 1.1m people living here (2.4m in the urban area and 4.3m in the metro area according to Wikipedia). That's a lot of people...
Torquay's a lovely little town to go on a nice little relaxing family holiday to, but not somewhere I'd go for punting purposes. Must be frustrating for people who live there, but they'd be best of getting in a train or car and going to somewhere like Bristol or Bournemouth to punt. If I was gonna go on holiday somewhere specifically for punting reasons, it would be Amsterdam, Prague, Bangkok I'd go to.
Ali and Kerosene kind of summed up things in Birmingham actually. There's no shortage of cheaper options in Brum. I could wake up any given day and chose from multiple £50-70 non fancy paid for fucks in a brothel or with likely an EE girl in a conveyor belt operation. Or I can go for something more fancy, but have to book in advance to get it. The lack of new appealing options, and the good but don't have to wait in line type options, is what I've always found a bit disappointing here, but no doubt these options have improved of late (Kerosene makes a good point about the Water St group), like you say though, would still like to see more.
Best places to punt? Probably Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff. From what most people say Manchester is apparently where it's at. I like Birmingham though. This city is my home after all. To be fair I've always managed to find good punts with a bit of effort and it's very unlikely I'd move to somewhere else, or make regular long trips just for punting purposes.