Crap Towns / West Midlands / Kingswinford
Kingswinford
19/100Crap Score
797th crappest of 984 towns, and 27th in the West Midlands. 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
Nice glass. Dodgy kitchens.
Kingswinford made lovely glass. Then it shut the glass museum and the library.
Kingswinford made glass good enough for a museum, then shut the museum. Pensnett's library went in 2019. You can barely find a hairdresser, the banks are leaving and there's no railway station, so it sits on the edge of the Black Country being quietly pleased it isn't Dudley.
Hardly anybody misbehaves, and Kingswinford would like you to know it. Then the local firebugs set fire to another bin: fires get started on purpose at 2.4 times the typical town's rate. The takeaways scoring 0 to 2 on hygiene come to 4.2 times the typical town's share. And 40.5% of people live further than 400 metres from a park or play area.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Kingswinford's 83 for food hygiene means it's crapper than 83% of towns.
- Food hygiene83/1005.0% rated 0 to 2, of the 222 food businesses with a rating
- Deliberate fires81/10013.5 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Air pollution69/1009.4 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.1 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Rain54/100130 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Sewage spills36/100139 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Fly-tipping36/1008.4 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Dudley council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Criminal damage and arson17/1004.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Serious road collisions17/1001.5 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Broadband4/1002.0% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 2.8% across the Dudley council area
- Anti-social behaviour2/1003.8 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | Royal Sutton Coldfield | 36 |
| 23 | Aldridge | 36 |
| 24 | Coseley | 35 |
| 25 | Solihull | 30 |
| 26 | Sedgley | 24 |
| 27 | Kingswinford | 19 |
| 28 | Streetly | 16 |
| 29 | Knowle and Dorridge | 15 |
| 30 | Halesowen | 11 |
Kingswinford by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 56.5 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 26% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 180 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 34.7 per 10,000 people, 10.2x the typical town's 3.4
- 6 serious pollution incidents within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2025
What's left on the high street
- 22 pubs, 1 hairdresser, 1 bank on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 16.7% of takeaways rated 0 to 2 for hygiene (5 of 30) Worse: 4.2x the typical town's 4.0%
- 2 bank branch closures announced since 2022 Worse: 3.9 per 100,000 people, 15% higher than the typical town's 3.4
- 1 library shut for good since 2010: Pensnett Library Link (2019)
- 4 public swimming pools open Better: 0.8 per 10,000 people, 14% higher than the typical English town's 0.7
- 3 places on England's Heritage at Risk register
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.11am last bus out on a Wednesday About the same: About the same as the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.1% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Better: 80% lower than the typical town's 0.5%
- 40.5% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.6x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,510 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Dudley council
Have a crap-off
Kingswinford 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.