Crap Towns / Greater Manchester / Stalybridge
Stalybridge
89/100Crap Score
112th crappest of 984 towns, and 20th in Greater Manchester. 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
Staly Vegas. Calm down.
Called Staly Vegas for the Friday nights out. Or the traffic lights, depending who you ask.
Stalybridge put the canal back through the middle of town and started calling itself Little Venice, which is a stretch. Everyone else calls it Staly Vegas, after the Friday night crowd staggering between the pubs. Tipperary got written here, apparently.
The storm drains round Stalybridge chuck out sewage for nearly eight times as long as the typical town's, so the Tame gets more than its share of shit, and not just on a Friday. You get rain on 167 days a year and the sun puts in 1,308 hours. Little Venice, then.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Stalybridge's 95 for sewage spills means it's crapper than 95% of towns.
- Sewage spills95/1002,166 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Rain90/100167 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Air pollution81/10011.5 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 7.3 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Deliberate fires78/10011.4 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Fly-tipping70/10015.2 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Tameside council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Food hygiene69/1003.6% rated 0 to 2, of the 165 food businesses with a rating
- Criminal damage and arson64/1008.1 per 1,000 people a year, July 2023 to June 2026
- Serious road collisions60/1002.7 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Anti-social behaviour51/10015.5 per 1,000 people a year, July 2023 to June 2026
- Broadband35/1006.9% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 4.9% across the Tameside council area
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | Ashton-under-Lyne | 91 |
| 17 | Middleton | 91 |
| 18 | Worsley | 90 |
| 19 | Denton | 89 |
| 20 | Stalybridge | 89 |
| 21 | Mossley | 89 |
| 22 | Leigh | 88 |
| 23 | Uppermill | 87 |
| 24 | Royton | 86 |
Stalybridge by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 92.7 crimes per 1,000 people a year (July 2023 to June 2026) Worse: 22% higher than the typical town's 76.2
- 9 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 About the same: 3.4 per 10,000 people, about the same as the typical town's 3.4
- 1 serious pollution incident within 1 km since 2016, the latest in 2016
What's left on the high street
- 20 pubs, 7 hairdressers, 1 bookmaker, 1 bank, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 0.0% of takeaways rated 0 to 2 for hygiene (0 of 29) Better: Against the typical town's 4.0%
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 3.7 per 100,000 people, 9% higher than the typical town's 3.4
- 6 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 2.2 per 10,000 people, 38% higher than the typical town's 1.6
- 3 public swimming pools open Better: 1.1 per 10,000 people, 1.6x the typical English town's 0.7
- 1 place on England's Heritage at Risk register
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.40am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.4% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Better: 20% lower than the typical town's 0.5%
- 35.7% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.3x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,308 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 15% lower than the typical town's 1,532
Tameside council
Have a crap-off
Stalybridge 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.