Crap Towns / Oxfordshire / Chipping Norton
Chipping Norton
11/100Crap Score
Known as Chippy.
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 11. 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
Bloody lovely. Bloody busy.
An old wool town on a hill, full of pubs, charity shops and tourists in no hurry.
Chipping Norton is annoyingly nice. Old stone, a market square on a hill, pubs, no crime to speak of. We tried. The worst thing about it is the tourists, who crawl in, park like idiots and stand in the road taking photos of a wool merchant's house. The Mop fair shuts the town for a bit every autumn. That's the excitement.
Look closer and Chippy has five times the typical town's charity shops per head. That's where the cashmere goes to die. The storm overflows round it spilled for 2.4 times as long as the typical town's, so the Cotswold streams aren't quite what the postcards make out.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Chipping Norton's 73 for sewage spills means it's crapper than 73% of towns.
- Sewage spills73/100670 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Broadband44/1007.3% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 7.4% across the West Oxfordshire council area
- Rain43/100125 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Fly-tipping40/1009.5 incidents per 1,000 people a year, West Oxfordshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Anti-social behaviour30/1008.0 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Deliberate fires25/1003.6 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Air pollution20/1004.7 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.3 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Serious road collisions17/1001.3 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Food hygiene12/1000.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 67 food businesses with a rating
- Criminal damage and arson8/1003.8 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Witney | 20 |
| 4 | Abingdon-on-Thames | 15 |
| 5 | Didcot | 13 |
| 6 | Bicester | 12 |
| – | Chipping Norton | 11 |
| 7 | Henley-on-Thames | 7 |
| 8 | Carterton | 5 |
| 9 | Wantage | 5 |
| 10 | Thame | 5 |
Chipping Norton by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 59.5 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 22% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 151 reports of broken street lights on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 216 per 10,000 people, 308.6x the typical town's 0.7
What's left on the high street
- 6 pubs, 6 hairdressers, 5 charity shops on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 14.3 per 100,000 people, 4.2x the typical town's 3.4
- 4 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 5.7 per 10,000 people, 3.6x the typical town's 1.6
- 3 public swimming pools open Better: 4.3 per 10,000 people, 6.1x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.59am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.3% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Better: 40% lower than the typical town's 0.5%
- 36.0% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.3x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,555 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
West Oxfordshire council
- £2,567 Band D council tax (2026-27) Worse: £175 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
Chipping Norton 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.