Cottenham

Long High Street. Keep walking.

Twinned with a very long High Street

22/100Crap Score

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 22. Higher scores are crapper.

How the score works

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Crap Town of the Year 2026/27

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The public vote. It's separate from the Crap Score, and it closes on 31 December 2027.

Letters from the locals

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Is the High Street over yet?

The High Street goes on for ages and the village kept burning down. That's the history.

Cottenham is a big Fen village with a High Street that goes on for bloody miles. It's burnt down a few times over the centuries, and they turned the windmill into a water tower. That's the history. Crime's low and nothing much happens.

It barely rains, which in the Fens just means more time to look at the fields. The storm overflows spill for half as long again as the typical town's, there's no pool, and the Sunday buses run at less than half the typical town's rate. So most of the traffic is somebody else speeding through on the way to somewhere better. Can't blame them.

The editor, still walking down the High Street

What the score is made of

Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.

Cottenham's 81 for broadband means it's crapper than 81% of towns.

Broadband81/10014.8% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 14.2% across the South Cambridgeshire council area
Deliberate fires71/100
Sewage spills60/100411 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
Food hygiene60/1005.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 20 food businesses with a rating
Air pollution37/1005.5 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.1 of fine particles, 2024 average
Criminal damage and arson32/1005.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
Anti-social behaviour28/10011.6 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
Serious road collisions18/1001.3 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
Fly-tipping17/1005.9 incidents per 1,000 people a year, South Cambridgeshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
Rain4/100109 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average

**Your patch: Cambridgeshire**Towns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
Pos	Town	National	Score
5	St Ives	575th	42
In danger of becoming nice from here down.6	Chatteris	698th	29
7	March	713th	28
8	Ely	744th	24
–	Cottenham	–	22
9	St Neots	811th	18
10	Whittlesey	812th	17
11	Soham	846th	14
12	Cambourne	978th	1

Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.

Cottenham by numbers

Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.

Crime, muck and dodgy water

What's left on the high street

Getting about, getting online, getting rained on

South Cambridgeshire council

Have a crap-off

Cottenham against your mate's town, and a match ticket to rub it in.

Against

CottenhamCrap Score 22

Histon and ImpingtonCrap Score 23

Ten ingredients. One verdict. Who's crapper? The higher Crap Score takes it.