Crap TownsBritain's towns, rated by the people stuck in them

Crap Towns / North Yorkshire / Pickering

Welcome to

Pickering

Pickering. Steam trains only. No real ones.
Twinned with a steam train going nowhere

40/100Crap Score

Locals call it the Shire.

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 40. 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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Steam trains and the drains

There's a castle and a steam railway. And when the wind's wrong, the drains.

Pickering's got a castle, a Monday market and a steam railway over the moors, but no proper train to anywhere you'd need to go. The High Street is vape shops, charity shops and pubs. A leak on Birdgate had the traffic lights up for months, the new estates are too much for the drains, and some days the whole town smells of shit.

The last bus pulls out at 8.21pm and they run about a quarter as often as the typical town's, so once you're in the Shire you're stopping. Locals who leave tend to move back anyway. There's 5 charity shops and 5 public toilets, and Barclays has gone. The air's lovely, mind, when the drains aren't going.

The editor, who caught the steam train out

What the score is made of

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

Pickering's 75 for broadband means it's crapper than 75% of towns.

  • Broadband75/10010.1% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 17.4% across the North Yorkshire council area
  • Sewage spills74/100700 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
  • Anti-social behaviour64/10017.2 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Rain54/100130 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
  • Criminal damage and arson47/1006.8 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Serious road collisions44/1002.2 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
  • Food hygiene40/1001.7% rated 0 to 2, of the 58 food businesses with a rating
  • Deliberate fires31/1004.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
  • Fly-tipping12/1005.0 incidents per 1,000 people a year, North Yorkshire council area, 2023-24 to 2024-25
  • Air pollution6/1004.2 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.9 of fine particles, 2024 average
Your patch: North YorkshireTowns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
PosTownNationalScore
10Northallerton436th56
11Selby481st51
12Huntington533rd46
13Haxby589th40
–Pickering–40
14Catterick Garrison681st31
15Knaresborough743rd25
16Harrogate826th16
17Ripon838th15

Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.

Pickering 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

North Yorkshire council

Have a crap-off

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

PickeringCrap Score 40
v
MaltonCrap Score 70

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