Crap Towns / Kent / Hoo St Werburgh

Welcome to

Hoo St Werburgh

Hoo? Hoo St Werburgh. Keep up.
Twinned with a queue on Four Elms Hill

41/100Crap Score

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 41. 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 Hoo St Werburgh? Write in.

Who? No, Hoo.

A village on the marshes that keeps getting houses and nothing else.

Hoo St Werburgh is a village on the marshes with a fort out in the river and fields disappearing under new houses every year. Nobody's built any roads to go with them, so Four Elms Hill is a queue and the buses are rubbish. And everyone asks Hoo?

It barely rains, 106 days a year, and it's got public pools at over three times the typical town's rate per head, so it's not short of water either way. The air's over the health guidelines for both nitrogen dioxide and fine particles, though, so the estuary birds are breathing the same shite you are. Medway's fly-tippers do the rest.

What the score is made of

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

Hoo St Werburgh's 82 for air pollution means it's crapper than 82% of towns.

  • Air pollution82/10010.4 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.5 of fine particles, 2024 average
  • Fly-tipping81/10019.4 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Medway council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
  • Anti-social behaviour63/10017.2 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Broadband54/1008.4% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 9.6% across the Medway council area
  • Criminal damage and arson40/1006.4 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Sewage spills39/100172 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2024 to 2025
  • Food hygiene32/1000.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 26 food businesses with a rating
  • Deliberate fires29/1004.0 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
  • Serious road collisions17/1001.4 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
  • Rain0/100106 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
Your patch: KentTowns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
PosTownNationalScore
22Swanscombe510th48
23Broadstairs519th47
24Hythe548th44
25Tonbridge564th43
–Hoo St Werburgh–41
In danger of becoming nice from here down.26Royal Tunbridge Wells598th39
27Larkfield613th38
28Deal630th36
29Herne672nd32

Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.

Have a crap-off

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

Hoo St WerburghCrap Score 41
v
RochesterCrap Score 72

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