Crap Towns / East Renfrewshire / Clarkston
Clarkston
12/100Crap Score
Known as Toryville, by everyone who doesn't live here.
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 12. 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
Clarkston. The Toll's seen better days.
An affluent suburb built round a concrete shopping parade that nobody's touched since the seventies.
Clarkston is the bit of the south side where folk own a good coat and say mum instead of maw. The rest of Glasgow calls it Toryville. The middle of it is the Toll, a concrete shopping parade that hasn't seen a lick of paint since flares were in, with the bins overflowing out the front.
There are 7 charity shops, over five times the typical town's share, all of them full of somebody's old Barbour. Crime runs 75% below the typical Scottish town's. The takeaways are the gamble: 2 of the 12 inspected were told to improve.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Clarkston's 97 for rain means it's crapper than 97% of towns.
- Rain97/100178 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Sewage spills59/100391 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Food hygiene41/1004.0% told to improve, of the 50 food businesses inspected
- Serious road collisions30/1001.3 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Air pollution19/1007.0 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.8 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Deliberate fires10/1006.8 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Broadband6/1001.3% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 4.7% across the East Renfrewshire council area
- Anti-social behaviour1/1001.6 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Criminal damage and arson0/1002.4 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barrhead | 55 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.2 | Giffnock | 33 |
| 3 | Newton Mearns | 21 |
| – | Clarkston | 12 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Clarkston by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 13.4 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Better: 75% lower than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 19 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 20.0 per 10,000 people, 3.6x the typical Scottish town's 5.6
What's left on the high street
- 2 pubs, 8 hairdressers, 7 charity shops, 2 bookmakers, 1 vape shop, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 16.7% of takeaways inspected told to improve (2 of 12) Worse: 1.8x the typical Scottish town's 9.1%
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 10.5 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
- 12.54am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.6% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 20% higher than the typical town's 0.5%
- 40.2% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 2.6x the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,341 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
Clarkston 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.