Crap Towns / Buckinghamshire / Bourne End
Bourne End
9/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 9. Higher scores are crapper.
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Crap Town of the Year 2026/27
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Letters from the locals
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agree it's crap have defended it
Sat at Cores End since Tuesday
The Wye meets the Thames, the traffic meets at Cores End, and nobody's going anywhere.
Bourne End sits where the Wye meets the Thames, and it's very pretty and very smug about it. Hardly any crime. Hardly anything at all, really. The railway used to go to Wycombe, and now it's the Marlow Donkey shuttling back and forth. Meanwhile Cores End is jammed solid and houses are going up on every field.
It's got twice the typical town's pubs per head and nobody smashes anything up on the way home. The food's another matter, with over twice the typical town's share of kitchens rated 0 to 2. There's no public pool, but there are two rivers. Help yourself.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Bourne End's 82 for broadband means it's crapper than 82% of towns.
- Broadband82/10013.4% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 18.0% across the Buckinghamshire council area
- Air pollution74/1009.5 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.3 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Food hygiene68/1005.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 40 food businesses with a rating
- Deliberate fires31/1004.2 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Fly-tipping27/1007.1 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Buckinghamshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Rain23/100118 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Sewage spills17/10032.3 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Serious road collisions16/1001.3 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Criminal damage and arson6/1003.6 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Anti-social behaviour1/1003.3 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Amersham | 34 |
| 6 | Newport Pagnell | 19 |
| 7 | Flackwell Heath and Wooburn Green | 13 |
| 8 | Aylesbury | 10 |
| – | Bourne End | 9 |
| 9 | Buckingham | 8 |
| 10 | Marlow | 6 |
| 11 | Chalfont St Peter | 5 |
| 12 | Beaconsfield | 3 |
Bourne End by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 40.7 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 47% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 92 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 128 per 10,000 people, 37.6x 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
- 7 pubs, 2 hairdressers, 2 charity shops, 1 bookmaker on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 1 public toilet on the map (October 2026) Worse: 1.4 per 10,000 people, 13% lower than the typical town's 1.6
- None public swimming pools open Worse: Against the typical English town's 0.7 per 10,000 people
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 11.03pm 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%
- 34.3% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.2x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,606 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Buckinghamshire council
Have a crap-off
Bourne End 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.