Ilminster

Lovely carnival. No bus home.

Twinned with a Tesco car park with a time limit

20/100Crap Score

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 20. 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

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Don't wait for the bus

Old wool town with a lit-up carnival, hardly any Sunday buses and far too much sewage.

Ilminster's a pretty old wool town with a lit-up carnival and a footpath where the railway used to be. Crime's low. The moans are buses that barely turn up, nowhere to park and plans to charge for the spaces there are. Tesco cut its free parking and people went mental.

Lloyds and NatWest have both cleared off, the charity shops are at nearly five times the typical town's per head, and there's no park on the map. The overflows run for seven times as long as the typical town's. On a Sunday there's barely a bus out, so you're stuck with it.

The editor, who waited for a bus and walked

What the score is made of

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

Ilminster's 93 for sewage spills means it's crapper than 93% of towns.

Sewage spills93/1001,948 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
Broadband82/1009.8% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 24.3% across the Somerset council area
Deliberate fires64/1008.0 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
Rain58/100133 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
Serious road collisions30/1001.7 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
Food hygiene25/1000.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 39 food businesses with a rating
Fly-tipping19/1006.2 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Somerset council area, 2023-24 to 2024-25
Air pollution12/1004.6 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 5.5 of fine particles, 2024 average
Anti-social behaviour10/1008.2 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
Criminal damage and arson7/1003.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026

**Your patch: Somerset**Towns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
Pos	Town	National	Score
8	Yeovil	651st	34
9	Minehead	656th	33
10	Frome	676th	31
11	Wellington	716th	27
–	Ilminster	–	20
12	Street	816th	17
13	Portishead	829th	16
14	Wells	832nd	15
15	Burnham-on-Sea	876th	11

Ilminster 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

Somerset council

Have a crap-off

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

Against

IlminsterCrap Score 20

ChardCrap Score 38

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