Crap Towns / Perth and Kinross / Blairgowrie
Blairgowrie
21/100Crap Score
Known as Berry Town.
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 21. 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
Blair. Raspberries and not much signal.
Raspberry country, with a shut hotel in the middle and broadband from another century.
Blairgowrie grows raspberries. Every summer the fields fill up with pickers and the town centre doesn't. The clothes shops have gone, the big hotel in the middle is shuttered, and the rents are too high for anything to replace them. It still has 3 banks, a lot for a town this size, though the Bank of Scotland's on its way out.
79.6% of premises can't get gigabit broadband. Four houses in five in Blair are on the internet you had years ago. Otherwise the air's as clean as you'll get and the place is quiet. It's the signal that does your head in.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Blairgowrie's 100 for broadband means it's crapper than 100% of towns.
- Broadband100/10079.6% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 44.9% across the Perth and Kinross council area
- Rain72/100147 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Food hygiene62/1007.0% told to improve, of the 57 food businesses inspected
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Serious road collisions39/1001.5 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Criminal damage and arson25/1005.3 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Sewage spills15/10020.6 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Anti-social behaviour15/1004.5 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Deliberate fires5/1005.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Air pollution0/1002.2 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.1 of fine particles, 2024 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Perth | 59 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.– | Blairgowrie | 21 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Blairgowrie by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 36.5 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Better: 33% lower than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 2 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Better: 2.1 per 10,000 people, 63% lower than the typical Scottish town's 5.6
What's left on the high street
- 7 pubs, 1 hairdresser, 1 charity shop, 3 banks on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 10.6 per 100,000 people, 3.1x the typical town's 3.4
- 1 public toilet 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
- 11.46pm 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%
- 5.5% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 65% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,410 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 8% lower than the typical town's 1,532
Perth and Kinross council
- £1,674 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £21 more than the Scottish average
- 33% of Perth and Kinross council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 8% lower than Scotland's 36%
- 85 ombudsman complaints decided in 2025-26, none upheld Worse: 56.3 per 100,000 residents, 1.6x Scotland's 34.7
- 88.1% 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
Blairgowrie 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.