Linthwaite and Slaithwaite

It's Slawit. Don't argue.

Twinned with Marsden, the cuckoos

71/100Crap Score

Linthwaite folk are Leadboilers.

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 71. Higher scores are crapper.

How the score works

Have your say

Crap Town of the Year 2026/27

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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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Slaithwaite. It's pronounced Slawit.

Pretty canal, old mills, and a name nobody outside the valley can say.

Slaithwaite is pronounced Slawit, Linthwaite is Linfit, and you'll get told off for getting either wrong. The canal's pretty, the mills are old and there's a lantern festival about raking the moon out of the water. What's actually in the water is sewage, the lanes get fly-tipped and Manchester Road has nowhere to park.

You get rain on 171 days a year, so the moon's hard to spot anyway. The water company lets sewage out nearby for seven and a half times as long as in the typical town. 5 old buildings are on the Heritage at Risk list, and Lloyds has gone. Marsden's lot call them Moonrakers. Marsden's lot tried to wall in a cuckoo.

The editor, who pronounced it wrong

What the score is made of

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

Linthwaite and Slaithwaite's 94 for sewage spills means it's crapper than 94% of towns.

Sewage spills94/1002,056 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
Rain92/100171 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
Fly-tipping82/10019.7 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Kirklees council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
Food hygiene73/1004.7% rated 0 to 2, of the 86 food businesses with a rating
Serious road collisions57/1002.6 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
Broadband43/1008.5% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 4.8% across the Kirklees council area
Deliberate fires41/1005.3 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
Air pollution37/1007.4 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.4 of fine particles, 2024 average
Criminal damage and arson37/1006.1 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
Anti-social behaviour19/1006.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026

**Your patch: West Yorkshire**Towns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
Pos	Town	National	Score
18	Bingley	197th	80
19	Liversedge	200th	80
20	Gomersal and Birkenshaw	208th	79
21	Pudsey	272nd	72
–	Linthwaite and Slaithwaite	–	71
22	Todmorden	298th	70
23	Normanton	312th	68
24	Featherstone	314th	68
25	Brighouse	335th	66

Linthwaite and Slaithwaite 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

Kirklees council

Have a crap-off

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

Against

Linthwaite and SlaithwaiteCrap Score 71

MelthamCrap Score 37

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