Crap Towns / East Renfrewshire / Barrhead
Barrhead
55/100Crap Score
447th crappest of 984 towns, and the crappest in East Renfrewshire. 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
Barrhead. Built the bogs.
The working town in East Renfrewshire, surrounded by suburbs that would rather you didn't mention it.
Barrhead made toilets. Proper ones, shipped all over the world, and the town's never lived it down. It's the one old industrial town in East Renfrewshire, with Giffnock and Newton Mearns up the road behind their hedges, and it's the crappest town in the council area by a distance.
The firebugs go for the bins, at 1.7 times the typical Scottish town's rate, and it was worse still in 2023/24. Litter and bins top the moans to the council. Locals reckon there are too many takeaways. Not one of them was told to improve, so it's a complaint about quantity.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Barrhead's 97 for rain means it's crapper than 97% of towns.
- Rain97/100177 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Deliberate fires81/10037.4 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Sewage spills68/100566 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Anti-social behaviour61/1009.1 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Criminal damage and arson60/1007.8 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Serious road collisions50/1001.7 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Broadband27/1005.4% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 4.7% across the East Renfrewshire council area
- Air pollution16/1006.7 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.6 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Food hygiene16/1002.3% told to improve, of the 89 food businesses inspected
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barrhead | 55 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.2 | Giffnock | 33 |
| 3 | Newton Mearns | 21 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Barrhead by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 48.1 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Better: 12% lower than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 34 reports of litter and bins on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 19.3 per 10,000 people, 27.6x the typical Scottish town's 0.7
What's left on the high street
- 6 pubs, 1 charity shop, 2 banks, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 0.0% of takeaways inspected told to improve (0 of 22) Better: Against the typical Scottish town's 9.1%
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 5.7 per 100,000 people, 1.7x the typical town's 3.4
- 4 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 2.3 per 10,000 people, 44% higher than the typical town's 1.6
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 11.56pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 1.2% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 2.4x the typical town's 0.5%
- 3.6% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 77% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,342 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 12% lower than the typical town's 1,532
East Renfrewshire council
- £1,620 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £33 less than the Scottish average
- 36% of East Renfrewshire council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) About the same: About the same as Scotland's 36%
- 32 ombudsman complaints decided in 2025-26, none upheld About the same: 33.0 per 100,000 residents, about the same as Scotland's 34.7
- 95.3% 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
Barrhead 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.