Crap Towns / Surrey / Oxted
Oxted
57/100Crap Score
420th crappest of 984 towns, and 12th in Surrey. 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
Posh and dead.
Posh commuter town that pushes prams round the pubs in fancy dress once a year.
Oxted is a posh, quiet commuter town under the North Downs with an old High Street and a lot of charity shops. Its big night out is a pram race between pubs in fancy dress. The rest of the year it's dead in the evenings. The station car park shut, so the commuters park outside your house now. That's the scandal.
The charity shops run at over four times the typical town's rate per head, HSBC and NatWest have both gone, and there's no bus after 8.43pm. Sewage came out of the overflows nearby for two and a half times as long as in the typical town. Nobody's set fire to so much as a bin. Too posh for it.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Oxted's 81 for broadband means it's crapper than 81% of towns.
- Broadband81/1008.1% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 27.1% across the Tandridge council area
- Sewage spills74/100693 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2024 to 2025
- Air pollution65/1008.8 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.1 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Serious road collisions62/1002.8 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Food hygiene59/1003.4% rated 0 to 2, of the 59 food businesses with a rating
- Fly-tipping58/10010.9 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Tandridge council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Rain51/100128 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Criminal damage and arson36/1006.0 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Anti-social behaviour25/10011.0 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Deliberate fires19/100
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | Egham | 67 |
| 9 | Reigate | 67 |
| 10 | Woking | 60 |
| 11 | Walton-on-Thames | 59 |
| 12 | Oxted | 57 |
| 13 | Weybridge | 55 |
| 14 | Tadworth and Epsom Downs | 54 |
| 15 | Ashford | 52 |
| 16 | New Haw, West Byfleet and Sheerwater | 51 |
Oxted by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 53.5 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 30% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 625 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 544 per 10,000 people, 160x the typical town's 3.4
What's left on the high street
- 7 pubs, 4 hairdressers, 7 charity shops, 1 vape shop, 1 bank on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 2 bank branch closures announced since 2022 Worse: 17.4 per 100,000 people, 5.1x the typical town's 3.4
- 7 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 6.1 per 10,000 people, 3.8x the typical town's 1.6
- 2 public swimming pools open Better: 1.7 per 10,000 people, 2.4x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 8.43pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 1.1% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 2.2x the typical town's 0.5%
- 18.5% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 19% higher than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,620 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Better: 6% higher than the typical town's 1,532
Tandridge council
Have a crap-off
Oxted 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.