Crap Towns / Oxfordshire / Bicester
Bicester
12/100Crap Score
869th crappest of 984 towns, and 6th in Oxfordshire. 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 coaches don't know there's a town
Coachloads come for cheap handbags. Hardly any of them know there's a town here.
Bicester Village gets the coaches and the handbag shoppers. Bicester the town gets the traffic. Most of them don't even know there's a real high street round the corner, and Sheep Street isn't going to tell them. The rest is new estates full of people queuing for Oxford every morning. And none of them can say the bloody name.
Shoplifting is running at over three times the typical town's rate, so not all the handbags are paid for. A takeaway here is three times as likely as the typical town's to be rated 0 to 2. Barclays, Halifax, HSBC and NatWest have all shut a branch. The outlet's welcome to the money.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Bicester's 58 for food hygiene means it's crapper than 58% of towns.
- Food hygiene58/1002.9% rated 0 to 2, of the 207 food businesses with a rating
- Broadband49/1006.7% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 11.2% across the Cherwell council area
- Sewage spills44/100217 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Air pollution42/1006.8 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.9 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Serious road collisions35/1002.0 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Fly-tipping25/1007.0 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Cherwell council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Criminal damage and arson19/1004.9 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Rain17/100116 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Deliberate fires15/1003.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Anti-social behaviour15/1006.1 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Banbury | 48 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.3 | Witney | 20 |
| 4 | Abingdon-on-Thames | 15 |
| 5 | Didcot | 13 |
| 6 | Bicester | 12 |
| 7 | Henley-on-Thames | 7 |
| 8 | Carterton | 5 |
| 9 | Wantage | 5 |
| 10 | Thame | 5 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Bicester by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 78.4 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 76.2
- 933 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 247 per 10,000 people, 72.6x the typical town's 3.4
- 1 serious pollution incident within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2021
What's left on the high street
- 15 pubs, 14 hairdressers, 9 charity shops, 4 bookmakers, 1 vape shop, 4 banks, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 12.5% of takeaways rated 0 to 2 for hygiene (4 of 32) Worse: 3.1x the typical town's 4.0%
- 4 bank branch closures announced since 2022 Worse: 10.6 per 100,000 people, 3.1x the typical town's 3.4
- 7 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 1.9 per 10,000 people, 19% higher than the typical town's 1.6
- 4 public swimming pools open Better: 1.1 per 10,000 people, 1.6x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 1.03am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.8% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 1.6x the typical town's 0.5%
- 0.0% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: Against the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,572 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Cherwell council
- £2,583 Band D council tax (2026-27) Worse: £191 more than the English average
- 20% of Oxfordshire County Council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Worse: 25% higher than England's 16%
- 1 ombudsman complaint upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Bicester 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.