Crap Towns / Buckinghamshire / Wendover
Wendover
4/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 4. 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 Wendover? Write in.
agree it's crap have defended it
HS2 won't even stop here
Lovely little market town in the Chilterns. HS2 is being dug right past it.
Wendover is a pretty market town in the Chilterns, with woods, the Ridgeway, an arm of the canal and a Clock Tower, and it insists it's a village. Crime's almost nil. Then HS2 came along, dug up the countryside, sent construction lorries down the lanes, and it won't even stop here.
That's the big moan, and they make it count. There's a smaller one too: over a quarter of premises can't get gigabit broadband, so they're campaigning against high-speed rail on low-speed internet.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Wendover's 95 for broadband means it's crapper than 95% of towns.
- Broadband95/10027.4% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 18.0% across the Buckinghamshire council area
- Deliberate fires60/1007.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Food hygiene49/1002.3% rated 0 to 2, of the 43 food businesses with a rating
- Rain45/100125 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Air pollution36/1006.2 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.8 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Fly-tipping27/1007.1 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Buckinghamshire council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Serious road collisions9/1001.0 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Sewage spills2/1000.0 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Criminal damage and arson1/1002.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Anti-social behaviour1/1003.5 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Newport Pagnell | 19 |
| 7 | Flackwell Heath and Wooburn Green | 13 |
| 8 | Aylesbury | 10 |
| 9 | Buckingham | 8 |
| 10 | Marlow | 6 |
| 11 | Chalfont St Peter | 5 |
| – | Wendover | 4 |
| 12 | Beaconsfield | 3 |
| 13 | Hazlemere | 2 |
Wendover by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 28.8 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) Better: 62% lower than the typical town's 76.2
- 185 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 212 per 10,000 people, 62.4x the typical town's 3.4
What's left on the high street
- 5 pubs, 6 hairdressers, 2 charity shops, 1 bank on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 3 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 3.4 per 10,000 people, 2.1x the typical town's 1.6
- 1 public swimming pool open; 1 closed for good since 2010 Better: 1.1 per 10,000 people, 1.6x the typical English town's 0.7
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 11.37pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.8% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 1.6x the typical town's 0.5%
- 42.2% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.7x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,542 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Buckinghamshire council
Have a crap-off
Wendover 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.