Crap Towns / Staffordshire / Codsall
Codsall
26/100Crap Score
726th crappest of 984 towns, and 6th in Staffordshire. 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
Potholes stuffed with plastic crates
Plenty of pubs, a beer festival, and potholes in the Co-op car park stuffed with plastic crates.
Codsall is a nice enough village outside Wolverhampton with a good pub crawl and a beer festival. The Co-op car park has potholes so big people have stuck plastic crates in them, and that counts as news round here. Crime's low, the yobs are somewhere else and nobody's setting fire to the woods.
There's 1 hairdresser for the whole village, so Codsall walks round needing a trim. Superfast broadband doesn't reach 2.8% of premises, more than five times the typical town, and there's no bus after 10.48pm, which is early for a village that takes its beer this seriously.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Codsall's 79 for broadband means it's crapper than 79% of towns.
- Broadband79/10012.4% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 16.4% across the South Staffordshire council area
- Food hygiene65/1004.4% rated 0 to 2, of the 46 food businesses with a rating
- Sewage spills60/100411 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Fly-tipping59/10011.0 incidents per 1,000 people a year, South Staffordshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Rain56/100131 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Air pollution35/1006.7 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.5 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Deliberate fires24/1003.6 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Criminal damage and arson18/1004.8 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Serious road collisions11/1001.2 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Anti-social behaviour8/1007.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Burton upon Trent | 60 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.3 | Kidsgrove | 39 |
| 4 | Newcastle-under-Lyme | 38 |
| 5 | Leek | 30 |
| 6 | Codsall | 26 |
| 7 | Great Wyrley and Cheslyn Hay | 25 |
| 8 | Biddulph | 24 |
| 9 | Stafford | 22 |
| 10 | Wombourne | 17 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Codsall by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 44.5 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 42% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 5 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 4.2 per 10,000 people, 24% higher than the typical town's 3.4
What's left on the high street
- 5 pubs, 1 hairdresser, 1 charity shop, 1 vape shop, 1 bank, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 0.0% of takeaways rated 0 to 2 for hygiene (0 of 10) Better: Against the typical town's 4.0%
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 8.4 per 100,000 people, 2.5x the typical town's 3.4
- 2 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 1.7 per 10,000 people, 6% higher than the typical town's 1.6
- 1 public swimming pool open Better: 0.8 per 10,000 people, 14% higher than the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 10.48pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 2.8% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 5.6x the typical town's 0.5%
- 28.7% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 1.9x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,441 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 6% lower than the typical town's 1,532
South Staffordshire council
- £2,314 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £78 less than the English average
- 10% of Staffordshire County Council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 38% lower than England's 16%
- None ombudsman complaints upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Codsall 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.