Crap Towns / North Lanarkshire / Airdrie
Airdrie
83/100Crap Score
171st crappest of 984 towns, and 3rd in North Lanarkshire. 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
Airdrie. More vape shops than sun.
A public observatory in a town that hardly sees the sun, and vape shops all over what's left of the centre.
Airdrie has a public observatory on top of the library. Brave, in a town that gets 1,292 hours of sunshine a year and rain on 175 days. Mostly they're looking at cloud. Down in the centre it's hairdressers, shutters and vape shops, nearly seven times the typical town's vape shops per head.
Anti-social behaviour's getting on for double the typical Scottish town's, and still rising. The bins get it as well. Deliberate fires hit 50 per 10,000 people last year, up from 28 two years before, and it's mostly wheelie bins.
Airdrie people call Coatbridge West Airdrie, and Coatbridge has never once found it funny, which is the whole point. The old football club went bust and the Diamonds had to come back under a new name. It's the one thing round here anybody's managed to fix.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Airdrie's 96 for anti-social behaviour means it's crapper than 96% of towns.
- Anti-social behaviour96/10015.1 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Rain95/100175 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Serious road collisions89/1002.6 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Deliberate fires83/10037.5 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Criminal damage and arson79/1009.6 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Sewage spills57/100373 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Air pollution35/1008.8 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 5.2 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Broadband34/1005.7% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 6.6% across the North Lanarkshire council area
- Food hygiene13/1002.6% told to improve, of the 269 food businesses inspected
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Motherwell | 90 |
| 2 | Coatbridge | 85 |
| 3 | Airdrie | 83 |
| 4 | Wishaw | 75 |
| 5 | Bellshill | 73 |
| 6 | Kilsyth | 61 |
| 7 | Viewpark | 53 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.8 | Cumbernauld | 34 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Airdrie by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 72.8 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Worse: 34% higher than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 28 reports of fly-tipping on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026
What's left on the high street
- 13 pubs, 44 hairdressers, 5 charity shops, 5 bookmakers, 7 vape shops, 2 banks, 2 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 1.8% of takeaways inspected told to improve (1 of 55) Better: 80% lower than the typical Scottish town's 9.1%
- 4 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Worse: 1.1 per 10,000 people, 31% lower than the typical town's 1.6
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 11.27pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.9% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 1.8x the typical town's 0.5%
- 9.7% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 37% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,292 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 16% lower than the typical town's 1,532
North Lanarkshire council
- £1,555 Band D council tax (2026-27) Better: £98 less than the Scottish average
- 33% of North Lanarkshire council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 8% lower than Scotland's 36%
- 119 ombudsman complaints decided in 2025-26, none upheld About the same: 34.9 per 100,000 residents, about the same as Scotland's 34.7
- 87.9% of the streets checked passed as clean (2025-26) About the same: About the same as Scotland's 92.2%
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Airdrie 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.