Crap Towns / Cambridgeshire / Chatteris
Chatteris
29/100Crap Score
698th crappest of 984 towns, and 6th in Cambridgeshire. 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
Got something to say about Chatteris? Write in.
agree it's crap have defended it
Chatteris. Tesco said no.
They built a supermarket for Tesco. Tesco had a look and didn't bother.
Chatteris had a supermarket built specially for Tesco, and Tesco never opened it. That's Chatteris in a nutshell. The High Street's dying, it's flat in every direction and it smells of onions. Some of them say Charter-ray to sound posh. It doesn't work.
Getting out is the trick. The buses stop at 9.42pm on a Wednesday, and on a Sunday there isn't one. Not one bus, all day. The pool shut in 2023, so you can't even have a swim to pass the time. Sewage comes out of the overflows round here for nearly three times as long as in the typical town, so the onions aren't the only thing you can smell.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Chatteris's 77 for sewage spills means it's crapper than 77% of towns.
- Sewage spills77/100781 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Deliberate fires69/100
- Fly-tipping58/10010.9 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Fenland council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Anti-social behaviour57/10016.3 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Broadband52/1007.0% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 11.5% across the Fenland council area
- Air pollution35/1005.4 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.0 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Food hygiene22/1000.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 45 food businesses with a rating
- Criminal damage and arson21/1005.0 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Serious road collisions4/1000.7 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Rain1/100106 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Wisbech | 78 |
| 3 | Peterborough | 70 |
| 4 | Cambridge | 63 |
| 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 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Chatteris by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 48.2 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 37% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 2 reports of abandoned vehicles on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 1.8 per 10,000 people, 2x the typical town's 0.9
- 1 serious pollution incident within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2018
What's left on the high street
- 4 pubs, 2 hairdressers, 2 charity shops, 1 bookmaker on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 3 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 2.7 per 10,000 people, 1.7x the typical town's 1.6
- None public swimming pools open; 1 closed for good since 2010 Worse: Against the typical English town's 0.7 per 10,000 people
- 1 place on England's Heritage at Risk register
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 9.42pm last bus out on a Wednesday, and none on a Sunday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 1.1% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 2.2x the typical town's 0.5%
- 7.9% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 49% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,545 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Fenland council
- £2,538 Band D council tax (2026-27) Worse: £146 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%
- 1 ombudsman complaint upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Chatteris 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.