Crap Towns / Gwent / Abergavenny
Abergavenny
57/100Crap Score
423rd crappest of 984 towns, and 12th in Gwent. Higher scores are crapper.
Have your say
Crap Town of the Year 2026/27
See the raceThe public vote. It's separate from the Crap Score, and it closes on 31 December 2027.
Letters from the locals
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agree it's crap have defended it
The taxi's not coming, love
Posh food festival once a year. Dirty shop doorways the rest of the time.
Abergavenny bangs on about its food festival. Fair enough, the food's good. The rest of the year it's dirty doorways, a trudge up from the station and a taxi that never turns up. The buses give up early in the evening and on a Sunday they barely bother.
For a posh market town there's a lot of aggro. Anti-social behaviour comes in at over twice the typical town's rate, and something's getting smashed up at twice the rate too. Abergav's other thing is charity shops, nearly seven times the typical town's per head, full of the Barbour jackets the second-home crowd got bored of.
Barclays, Halifax and HSBC have all packed up and gone. The mountains are nice. You can keep the rest.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Abergavenny's 96 for criminal damage and arson means it's crapper than 96% of towns.
- Criminal damage and arson96/10014.3 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Anti-social behaviour95/10030.8 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Broadband87/10015.0% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 21.0% across the Monmouthshire council area
- Rain71/100147 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Sewage spills68/100561 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Deliberate fires50/100
- Serious road collisions26/1001.7 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Food hygiene24/1001.3% rated 0 to 2, of the 153 food businesses with a rating
- Fly-tipping23/1006.9 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Monmouthshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Air pollution11/1005.1 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 5.1 of fine particles, 2024 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Abertillery | 95 |
| 6 | Blackwood | 92 |
| 7 | Caerphilly | 88 |
| 8 | Pontypool | 86 |
| 9 | Ystrad Mynach | 85 |
| 10 | Cwmbrân | 75 |
| 11 | Chepstow | 59 |
| 12 | Abergavenny | 57 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.13 | Monmouth | 31 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Abergavenny by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 110 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Worse: 44% higher than the typical town's 76.2
- 38 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 27.7 per 10,000 people, 8.1x the typical town's 3.4
What's left on the high street
- 16 pubs, 7 hairdressers, 13 charity shops, 1 bookmaker, 1 vape shop, 5 banks, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 0.0% of takeaways rated 0 to 2 for hygiene (0 of 10) Better: Against the typical town's 4.0%
- 3 bank branch closures announced since 2022 Worse: 21.9 per 100,000 people, 6.4x the typical town's 3.4
- 7 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 5.1 per 10,000 people, 3.2x the typical town's 1.6
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 11.31pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.9% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 1.8x the typical town's 0.5%
- 4.8% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 69% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,504 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Monmouthshire council
Have a crap-off
Abergavenny against your mate's town, and a match ticket to rub it in.
- ?Fly-tippingper 1,000, council area?
- ?Anti-social behaviourper 1,000 people?
- ?Serious road crashesper 10,000 people?
- ?Sewage spillshours per 10,000 people?
- ?Food hygienerated poor?
- ?Criminal damageper 1,000 people?
- ?Dirty airµg/m³?
- ?No gigabitof premises can't get it?
- ?Deliberate firesper 10,000 people?
- ?Raindays a year?
Ten ingredients. One verdict. Who's crapper? The higher Crap Score takes it.