Crap Towns / Oxfordshire / Shrivenham and Watchfield
Shrivenham and Watchfield
19/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 19. Higher scores are crapper.
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Crap Town of the Year 2026/27
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Letters from the locals
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agree it's crap have defended it
Thatch on top, sewage underneath.
Thatched cottages, the military academy, an old festival field, and sewage worse than most.
Shrivenham is thatched cottages and a village pump, with the Defence Academy next door making everyone stand up straight. Watchfield once had a free festival on the old airfield. Now it's new estates.
Sewage went in the water round the place for ten times the typical town's hours. All that thatch, and it's sat on a sewer. Nearly a quarter of premises can't get gigabit broadband, and there are five times the typical town's play spaces per head, so the kids get swings and the grown-ups get buffering. Plenty of pubs, though.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Shrivenham and Watchfield's 97 for sewage spills means it's crapper than 97% of towns.
- Sewage spills97/1002,744 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Broadband92/10024.3% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 15.6% across the Vale of White Horse council area
- Food hygiene65/1009.1% rated 0 to 2, of the 11 food businesses with a rating
- Deliberate fires55/1006.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Rain38/100123 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Air pollution25/1005.9 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.3 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Criminal damage and arson22/1005.1 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Anti-social behaviour12/1005.8 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Serious road collisions4/1000.5 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Fly-tipping3/1003.2 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Vale of White Horse council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oxford | 62 |
| 2 | Banbury | 48 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.3 | Witney | 20 |
| – | Shrivenham and Watchfield | 19 |
| 4 | Abingdon-on-Thames | 15 |
| 5 | Didcot | 13 |
| 6 | Bicester | 12 |
| 7 | Henley-on-Thames | 7 |
| 8 | Carterton | 5 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Shrivenham and Watchfield by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 48.9 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 36% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 104 reports of broken street lights on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 194 per 10,000 people, 277.1x the typical town's 0.7
What's left on the high street
- 5 pubs, 3 hairdressers on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- None public swimming pools open Worse: Against the typical English town's 0.7 per 10,000 people
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.02am last bus out on a Wednesday About the same: About the same as the typical town's 12.14am
- 3.1% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 6.2x the typical town's 0.5%
- 8.1% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 48% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,627 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Better: 6% higher than the typical town's 1,532
Vale of White Horse council
- £2,577 Band D council tax (2026-27) Worse: £185 more than the English average
- 20% of Oxfordshire County Council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Worse: 25% higher than England's 16%
- 3 ombudsman complaints upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Shrivenham and Watchfield 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.