Crap TownsBritain's towns, rated by the people stuck in them

Crap Towns / East Sussex / Crowborough

Welcome to

Crowborough

Ashdown Forest. A bloody long walk home.
Twinned with a long walk up from Jarvis Brook

9/100Crap Score

896th crappest of 984 towns, and 11th in East Sussex. Higher scores are crapper.

How the score works

Have your say

Crap Town of the Year 2026/27

See the race

The 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 Crowborough? Write in.

Crowborough. Nice. Annoying.

Ashdown Forest beside it, a station down the hill, and a council tax bill that takes the piss.

Crowborough's hardly crap at all, which is bloody irritating. Clean air, Ashdown Forest on the doorstep, crime at under half the typical town's. In the war they hid a giant secret radio transmitter here, and in the Cold War a bunker for running the country after the bomb. Even the end of the world was going to be run from somewhere tidy.

So all we've got is this. The station's at the bottom of a hill in Jarvis Brook and the town's at the top. The buses barely bother after 7pm. Wealden charges £2,728 for a Band D, well over England's average, for the privilege of walking up it, and the potholes on Walshes Road will have your axle if you drive instead.

The editor, still walking up from the station

What the score is made of

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

Crowborough's 72 for broadband means it's crapper than 72% of towns.

  • Broadband72/1005.5% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 24.7% across the Wealden council area
  • Sewage spills69/100573 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2024 to 2025
  • Rain62/100135 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
  • Serious road collisions45/1002.3 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
  • Air pollution32/1006.1 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.6 of fine particles, 2024 average
  • Criminal damage and arson15/1004.6 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Food hygiene12/1000.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 67 food businesses with a rating
  • Anti-social behaviour9/1008.1 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Deliberate fires7/1002.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
  • Fly-tipping6/1004.1 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Wealden council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
Your patch: East SussexTowns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
PosTownNationalScore
4Eastbourne334th66
5Bexhill-on-Sea453rd54
6Brighton and Hove478th51
7Hailsham636th35
8Peacehaven691st30
9Polegate753rd23
10Uckfield807th18
11Crowborough896th9
12Seaford907th8

Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.

Crowborough 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

Wealden council

Have a crap-off

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

CrowboroughCrap Score 9
v
Rusthall and Langton GreenCrap Score 26

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