Crap Towns / North Yorkshire / Sherburn in Elmet
Sherburn in Elmet
34/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 34. 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
Sherburn. Listen to those engines.
Light aircraft overhead, motorbikes through the middle and a car meet every Sunday.
Sherburn in Elmet is a quiet village with an airfield, which would be fine if every biker in Yorkshire didn't turn up with an engine. Summer is bikers tearing about, Sundays are car meets parking everywhere, and the traffic through the middle never stops. Nobody vandalises anything and nobody fly-tips. They're too busy revving.
Which is as well, because there's no other way out. Buses after 7pm run about a sixth as often as the typical town's, and on a Sunday it's worse. Some knobhead keeps setting the grass alight at nearly five times the typical town's rate. There's an airfield, mind, if you're desperate.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Sherburn in Elmet's 78 for deliberate fires means it's crapper than 78% of towns.
- Deliberate fires78/10012.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Food hygiene68/100
- Broadband64/1006.8% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 17.4% across the North Yorkshire council area
- Serious road collisions58/1002.7 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Sewage spills47/100244 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Air pollution42/1007.4 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.6 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Anti-social behaviour39/10013.4 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Rain19/100117 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Fly-tipping12/1005.0 incidents per 1,000 people a year, North Yorkshire council area, 2023-24 to 2024-25
- Criminal damage and arson11/1004.2 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Northallerton | 56 |
| 11 | Selby | 51 |
| 12 | Huntington | 46 |
| 13 | Haxby | 40 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.– | Sherburn in Elmet | 34 |
| 14 | Catterick Garrison | 31 |
| 15 | Knaresborough | 25 |
| 16 | Harrogate | 16 |
| 17 | Ripon | 15 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Sherburn in Elmet by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 46.3 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 39% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 1 reports of fly-tipping on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 1.2 per 10,000 people, 9% higher than the typical town's 1.1
- 1 serious pollution incident within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2024
What's left on the high street
- 6 pubs, 2 hairdressers, 1 charity shop, 1 bookmaker, 1 vape shop on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 2 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 2.3 per 10,000 people, 44% higher than the typical town's 1.6
- 1 public swimming pool open Better: 1.2 per 10,000 people, 1.7x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 10.35pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.7% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 40% higher than the typical town's 0.5%
- 3.7% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 76% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,427 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 7% lower than the typical town's 1,532
North Yorkshire council
- £2,544 Band D council tax (2026-27) Worse: £152 more than the English average
- 18% of North Yorkshire council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Worse: 13% higher than England's 16%
- 41 ombudsman complaints upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Sherburn in Elmet 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.