Crap Towns / Berkshire / Cookham
Cookham
12/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 12. 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
Lovely when you can get out.
A very posh Thames village. When it floods, everyone's stuck.
Cookham is a posh Thames village where they still count the swans every year and hold a regatta. When the river floods, the usual roads go under and everyone has to use the emergency causeway. The rest of the time it's a queue for Cookham Bridge and a Range Rover squeezing through The Pound.
It's got more than twice the typical town's pubs per head and crime at under half the typical town's, so there's plenty of time to drink. Nothing else wrong, annoyingly, apart from the broadband. Gigabit only reaches about two thirds of premises.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Cookham's 96 for broadband means it's crapper than 96% of towns.
- Broadband96/10032.5% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 14.2% across the Windsor and Maidenhead council area
- Air pollution65/1008.7 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.2 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Food hygiene50/1002.4% rated 0 to 2, of the 41 food businesses with a rating
- Fly-tipping37/1008.8 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Windsor and Maidenhead council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Deliberate fires34/100
- Rain32/100121 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Sewage spills21/10044.4 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Serious road collisions18/1001.3 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Anti-social behaviour10/1005.4 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Criminal damage and arson5/1003.4 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Newbury | 37 |
| 4 | Ascot | 22 |
| 5 | Windsor | 21 |
| 6 | Thatcham | 17 |
| – | Cookham | 12 |
| 7 | Bracknell | 7 |
| 8 | Maidenhead | 6 |
| 9 | Wokingham | 5 |
| 10 | Caversham | 3 |
Cookham by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 33.9 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 56% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 16 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 30.7 per 10,000 people, 9x the typical town's 3.4
- 3 serious pollution incidents within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2024
What's left on the high street
- 6 pubs, 3 hairdressers, 1 charity shop on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 1 public toilet on the map (October 2026) Better: 1.9 per 10,000 people, 19% higher than 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
- 10.54pm last bus out on a Wednesday 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%
- 17.1% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 10% higher than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,601 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Windsor and Maidenhead council
- £1,953 Band D council tax (2026-27) Better: £439 less than the English average
- 2% of Windsor and Maidenhead council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 88% lower than England's 16%
- 12 ombudsman complaints upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Cookham 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.