Crap Towns / Buckinghamshire / High Wycombe
High Wycombe
56/100Crap Score
438th crappest of 984 towns, and the crappest in Buckinghamshire. 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
They weigh the mayor. In public.
High Wycombe made chairs for the whole country. Now it weighs the mayor and sets fire to the bins.
High Wycombe made chairs, and the football club are still the Chairboys. It also weighs its mayor in public to see if they've been stuffing their face on the town's money. Nobody weighs the council, which might help, because Buckinghamshire had 69 complaints upheld by the ombudsman in a year.
Check the hygiene rating before you eat out. Twice the typical town's share of Wycombe's kitchens are rated 0 to 2. Some knobhead's setting fire to the bins at nearly twice the typical town's rate, and at night it's loud exhausts and lads speeding down the valley. It's the crappest town in Buckinghamshire, which in Bucks takes some doing.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
High Wycombe's 86 for food hygiene means it's crapper than 86% of towns.
- Food hygiene86/1004.9% rated 0 to 2, of the 431 food businesses with a rating
- Broadband85/10014.9% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 18.0% across the Buckinghamshire council area
- Deliberate fires75/10010.7 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Air pollution74/1009.4 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.3 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Anti-social behaviour72/10012.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Criminal damage and arson54/1007.3 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Rain50/100127 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Serious road collisions34/1002.0 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Fly-tipping27/1007.1 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Buckinghamshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Sewage spills9/1005.8 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2024 to 2025
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | High Wycombe | 56 |
| 2 | Bletchley | 42 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.3 | Chesham | 39 |
| 4 | Milton Keynes | 36 |
| 5 | Amersham | 34 |
| 6 | Newport Pagnell | 19 |
| 7 | Flackwell Heath and Wooburn Green | 13 |
| 8 | Aylesbury | 10 |
| 9 | Buckingham | 8 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
High Wycombe by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 94.6 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Worse: 24% higher than the typical town's 76.2
- 1,590 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 190 per 10,000 people, 55.9x the typical town's 3.4
- 2 serious pollution incidents within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2022
What's left on the high street
- 17 pubs, 47 hairdressers, 6 charity shops, 10 bookmakers, 4 vape shops, 9 banks, 3 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 7.6% of takeaways rated 0 to 2 for hygiene (6 of 79) Worse: 1.9x the typical town's 4.0%
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Better: 1.2 per 100,000 people, 65% lower than the typical town's 3.4
- 15 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 1.8 per 10,000 people, 13% higher than the typical town's 1.6
- 5 public swimming pools open; 3 closed for good since 2010 Worse: 0.6 per 10,000 people, 14% lower than the typical English town's 0.7
- 1 place on England's Heritage at Risk register
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 2.56am 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%
- 21.1% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 36% higher than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,550 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Buckinghamshire council
Have a crap-off
High Wycombe 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.