Crap Towns / Cambridgeshire / Burwell
Burwell
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
Burwell. Even the castle gave up.
Burwell never finished its castle. The buses can't manage a full day either.
Burwell has a windmill, a museum and a castle they never got round to finishing. Then a fire-hose test knocked a wall of it down. Apart from that it's annoyingly nice, with crime about half the typical town's.
The buses give up at 7.15pm on a Wednesday and don't come at all on a Sunday. They don't go anywhere useful for work in Cambridge either, and there's nowhere to sit while you wait for one that does. A third of the village is more than 400 metres from a park or a swing. People speed through to get it over with.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Burwell's 68 for broadband means it's crapper than 68% of towns.
- Broadband68/10010.2% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 12.9% across the East Cambridgeshire council area
- Food hygiene56/1003.9% rated 0 to 2, of the 26 food businesses with a rating
- Deliberate fires34/100
- Air pollution33/1005.0 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.0 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Sewage spills32/100109 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Fly-tipping13/1005.3 incidents per 1,000 people a year, East Cambridgeshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Serious road collisions12/1001.0 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Criminal damage and arson9/1003.9 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Anti-social behaviour7/1007.4 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Rain6/100111 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | St Ives | 42 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.6 | Chatteris | 29 |
| 7 | March | 28 |
| 8 | Ely | 24 |
| 9 | St Neots | 18 |
| 10 | Whittlesey | 17 |
| 11 | Soham | 14 |
| – | Burwell | 2 |
| 12 | Cambourne | 1 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Burwell by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 36.3 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 52% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 6 reports of abandoned vehicles on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 10.1 per 10,000 people, 11.2x the typical town's 0.9
What's left on the high street
- 3 pubs, 1 hairdresser, 1 charity shop on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 2 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 3.4 per 10,000 people, 2.1x 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
- 7.15pm last bus out on a Wednesday, and none on a Sunday Worse: Earlier 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%
- 33.6% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.2x 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
East Cambridgeshire council
- £2,485 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £93 more than the English average
- 7% of Cambridgeshire County Council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 56% lower than England's 16%
- None ombudsman complaints upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Burwell 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.