Crap Towns / Essex / Brightlingsea
Brightlingsea
2/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 2. 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
Brightlingsea. Something stinks.
Sailing, beach huts, a lido and a stink nobody can explain.
Brightlingsea's nice. Beach huts, sailing, oysters, a lido and hardly any crime. There's a single road in and out, usually covered in mud. Then the smell turns up. Nobody knows where from and nobody owns up. Locals call it Excite-lingsea, which tells you how much else goes on.
It barely rains, so there's nothing to wash the stink away. For all the yachts, gigabit's on offer to 52.9% of premises. The last time anything kicked off was the Battle of Brightlingsea, over live animal exports, back in the 1990s. They're still talking about it.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Brightlingsea's 99 for broadband means it's crapper than 99% of towns.
- Broadband99/10047.1% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 20.6% across the Tendring council area
- Food hygiene45/1002.1% rated 0 to 2, of the 48 food businesses with a rating
- Air pollution39/1007.0 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.6 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Sewage spills27/10077.4 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Serious road collisions24/1001.6 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Criminal damage and arson17/1004.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Deliberate fires9/1001.9 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Fly-tipping8/1003.5 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Tendring council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Anti-social behaviour2/1004.1 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Rain0/100103 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 26 | Great Dunmow | 13 |
| 27 | Halstead | 12 |
| 28 | Rayleigh | 11 |
| 29 | Chelmsford | 9 |
| 30 | Hockley and Hawkwell | 7 |
| 31 | Maldon | 6 |
| – | Brightlingsea | 2 |
| 32 | Saffron Walden | 1 |
| 33 | South Woodham Ferrers | 0 |
Brightlingsea by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 44.6 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 41% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 1 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Better: 1.2 per 10,000 people, 65% lower than the typical town's 3.4
- Excellent Brightlingsea's bathing water rating, 2025
What's left on the high street
- 8 pubs, 8 hairdressers, 1 charity shop on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 3 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 3.5 per 10,000 people, 2.2x the typical town's 1.6
- 2 public swimming pools open Better: 2.3 per 10,000 people, 3.3x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 11.22pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.1% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Better: 80% lower than the typical town's 0.5%
- 27.1% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 1.7x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,762 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Better: 15% higher than the typical town's 1,532
Tendring council
Have a crap-off
Brightlingsea 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.