Crap Towns / Berkshire / Hungerford
Hungerford
5/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 5. 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
Antiques and oranges.
Antique shops, a canal and a day where men with poles hand out oranges.
Hungerford is a canal town full of antiques shops. Once a year, on Tutti Day, men carry poles with flowers on round town and hand out oranges, and at the Hocktide lunch they shoe the newcomers. Nobody can quite explain any of it.
The rest of the High Street is bookies, pubs and vape shops, over six times the typical town's vape shops per head. It's got public pools at over five times the typical town's rate per head, but you'll be swimming home: there's no bus after 7.27pm and there's none at all on a Sunday. The big moan is paying to park in the evening. They've got it easy.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Hungerford's 70 for broadband means it's crapper than 70% of towns.
- Broadband70/10011.2% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 12.2% across the West Berkshire council area
- Rain48/100127 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Criminal damage and arson48/1006.9 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Anti-social behaviour34/1008.4 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Food hygiene27/1000.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 34 food businesses with a rating
- Deliberate fires26/100
- Fly-tipping18/1006.2 incidents per 1,000 people a year, West Berkshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Air pollution18/1005.1 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 5.9 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Serious road collisions11/1000.9 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Sewage spills2/1000.0 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Thatcham | 17 |
| 7 | Bracknell | 7 |
| 8 | Maidenhead | 6 |
| 9 | Wokingham | 5 |
| – | Hungerford | 5 |
| 10 | Caversham | 3 |
| 11 | Crowthorne | 2 |
| 12 | Sandhurst | 1 |
| 13 | Woodley | 1 |
Hungerford by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 59.3 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 22% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 3 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 5.8 per 10,000 people, 1.7x the typical town's 3.4
- 1 serious pollution incident within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2020
What's left on the high street
- 5 pubs, 9 hairdressers, 2 charity shops, 1 bookmaker, 1 vape shop, 2 banks on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 2 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 3.9 per 10,000 people, 2.4x the typical town's 1.6
- 2 public swimming pools open Better: 3.9 per 10,000 people, 5.6x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 7.27pm last bus out on a Wednesday, and none on a Sunday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.4% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Better: 20% 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%
- 1,590 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
West Berkshire council
- £2,505 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £113 more than the English average
- 4% of West Berkshire council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 75% lower than England's 16%
- 4 ombudsman complaints upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Hungerford 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.