Crap Towns / Cambridgeshire / Histon and Impington
Histon and Impington
23/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 23. Higher scores are crapper.
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Crap Town of the Year 2026/27
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Letters from the locals
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agree it's crap have defended it
Ducks, jam, school run.
Ducks on the green. Jam in the history books. A bloody expensive place to be this dull.
Histon and Impington are stuck together so tight nobody can tell where the line is, and nobody outside cares. Green with ducks, a jam-making past, and the Stutes, who once knocked Leeds out of the FA Cup and have been mentioning it ever since. Then it's daft house prices and a wait for the GP.
There's rain on 104 days a year, so the place gets to be dry as well as smug. Leave your bike out, though, and it's gone. Bike theft runs at 2.9 per 1,000 people a year, against 0.5 in the typical town. Someone's riding it into Cambridge along the busway.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Histon and Impington's 84 for serious road collisions means it's crapper than 84% of towns.
- Serious road collisions84/1003.9 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Deliberate fires67/100
- Broadband56/1006.4% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 14.2% across the South Cambridgeshire council area
- Food hygiene55/1003.3% rated 0 to 2, of the 30 food businesses with a rating
- Air pollution51/1006.9 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.2 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Anti-social behaviour26/10011.3 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Fly-tipping17/1005.9 incidents per 1,000 people a year, South Cambridgeshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Criminal damage and arson16/1004.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Sewage spills2/1000.0 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Rain0/100104 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | St Ives | 42 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.6 | Chatteris | 29 |
| 7 | March | 28 |
| 8 | Ely | 24 |
| – | Histon and Impington | 23 |
| 9 | St Neots | 18 |
| 10 | Whittlesey | 17 |
| 11 | Soham | 14 |
| 12 | Cambourne | 1 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Histon and Impington by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 47.2 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 38% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 1 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Better: 1.3 per 10,000 people, 62% lower than the typical town's 3.4
- 2 serious pollution incidents within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2017
What's left on the high street
- 6 pubs, 3 hairdressers, 1 charity shop, 1 bookmaker, 1 bank on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 12.9 per 100,000 people, 3.8x the typical town's 3.4
- 1 public swimming pool open Better: 1.3 per 10,000 people, 1.9x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 11.55pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 1.2% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 2.4x the typical town's 0.5%
- 34.4% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.2x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,536 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
South Cambridgeshire council
- £2,536 Band D council tax (2026-27) Worse: £144 more than the English average
- 7% of Cambridgeshire County Council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 56% lower than England's 16%
- 1 ombudsman complaint upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Histon and Impington 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.