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

Crap Towns / Essex / Walton-on-the-Naze

Welcome to

Walton-on-the-Naze

The cliffs are going. The town's not far behind.
Twinned with Clacton, but quieter

33/100Crap Score

Locals call it Notlaw.

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 33. Higher scores are crapper.

How the score works

Have your say

Crap Town of the Year 2026/27

See the race

The 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 Walton-on-the-Naze? Write in.

Falling into the sea.

A long pier, a tower, beach huts, and cliffs dropping into the sea a bit at a time.

Walton-on-the-Naze has a long pier, a tower on the cliffs, beach huts and fossils. The cliffs keep falling into the sea and the town's been left to rot for years. The arcades are dark and noisy, and they did the pier up so much it's lost what people liked about it. Still, it's not Clacton.

It's sunny, the sea's rated Excellent, and there are more than six times the typical town's public toilets per head, which tells you the age of the crowd on the front. Gigabit broadband reaches about half the town. Nobody's streaming anything round here anyway.

Somebody's started setting the bins alight, and criminal damage is running at a third above the typical town's rate. It's not only the cliffs.

The editor, who found a fossil and left

What the score is made of

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

Walton-on-the-Naze's 99 for broadband means it's crapper than 99% of towns.

  • Broadband99/10048.5% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 20.6% across the Tendring council area
  • Criminal damage and arson78/1009.4 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Deliberate fires56/1006.2 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
  • Serious road collisions55/1002.6 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
  • Anti-social behaviour46/1009.8 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
  • Air pollution39/1007.2 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.6 of fine particles, 2024 average
  • Food hygiene39/1001.6% rated 0 to 2, of the 62 food businesses with a rating
  • Sewage spills29/10088.9 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
  • Fly-tipping8/1003.5 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Tendring council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
  • Rain2/100107 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
Your patch: EssexTowns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
PosTownNationalScore
14Chigwell561st43
15Loughton579th41
16South Ockendon619th37
17Buckhurst Hill625th37
–Walton-on-the-Naze–33
18Thundersley and South Benfleet665th32
19Billericay702nd29
20Witham709th28
21Harwich760th23

Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.

Walton-on-the-Naze 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

Tendring council

Have a crap-off

Walton-on-the-Naze against your mate's town, and a match ticket to rub it in.

Walton-on-the-NazeCrap Score 33
v
Kirby CrossCrap Score 2

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