Crap Towns / West Sussex / Selsey
Selsey
16/100Crap Score
827th crappest of 984 towns, and 16th in West Sussex. 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
Got something to say about Selsey? Write in.
agree it's crap have defended it
Crab's lovely. Leaving isn't.
Fresh crab, shingle beaches and the only road out always dug up.
Selsey is right on the end of a peninsula with crab boats, shingle beaches and a lifeboat. There's only the road in and out, and it's always dug up. In summer the holiday traffic crawls to Chichester and back, and they keep building houses, so there's more people sat in the queue.
It gets 1,928 hours of sunshine a year and rain on only 110 days, so it's a lovely spot to be stuck. Nearly a fifth of premises can't get gigabit broadband, so you can't even work from the queue. There's 1 hairdresser for the whole town. Everyone's growing it out till the road reopens.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Selsey's 95 for broadband means it's crapper than 95% of towns.
- Broadband95/10018.9% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 32.7% across the Chichester council area
- Criminal damage and arson59/1007.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Food hygiene48/1002.3% rated 0 to 2, of the 87 food businesses with a rating
- Anti-social behaviour46/10014.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Sewage spills34/100118 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2024 to 2025
- Fly-tipping23/1006.9 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Chichester council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Deliberate fires22/100
- Air pollution15/1005.2 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 5.6 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Serious road collisions10/1001.1 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Rain4/100110 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Worthing | 44 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.11 | Haywards Heath | 37 |
| 12 | Burgess Hill | 36 |
| 13 | Horsham | 34 |
| 14 | Lancing and Sompting | 30 |
| 15 | Hassocks and Hurstpierpoint | 26 |
| 16 | Selsey | 16 |
| 17 | Rustington | 15 |
| 18 | Southwater | 7 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Selsey by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 54.5 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 28% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 5 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 4.7 per 10,000 people, 38% higher than the typical town's 3.4
- 1 serious pollution incident within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2025
- Excellent Selsey's bathing water rating, 2025
What's left on the high street
- 6 pubs, 1 hairdresser on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 0.0% of takeaways rated 0 to 2 for hygiene (0 of 13) Better: Against the typical town's 4.0%
- 5 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 4.7 per 10,000 people, 2.9x the typical town's 1.6
- 3 public swimming pools open; 1 closed for good since 2010 Better: 2.8 per 10,000 people, 4x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.44am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 1.2% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 2.4x the typical town's 0.5%
- 33.4% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.2x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,928 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Better: 26% higher than the typical town's 1,532
Chichester council
- £2,470 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £78 more than the English average
- 19% of West Sussex County Council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Worse: 19% higher than England's 16%
- None ombudsman complaints upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Selsey 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.