Crap Towns / North Lanarkshire / Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld
34/100Crap Score
649th crappest of 984 towns, and 8th 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
A concrete spaceship in the rain.
A new town built round a concrete megastructure that won awards for being ugly. Now they're knocking it down.
Cumbernauld was the future once. The planners built the whole town centre as one big concrete block on stilts, and the architecture crowd loved it. Everyone else said it looked like a multi-storey car park that had landed from space, and it won a Carbuncle Award to settle the argument. Now they're pulling it down.
Rain falls on 186 days a year, 1,341 mm of it, nearly twice the typical town's. There are 18 public toilets, more than twice the typical town's per head, and the shopping centre still smells of piss.
For all that, it's the least crap town in North Lanarkshire, and Kilsyth will never hear the end of it. Folk from Glasgow still ask what it's called.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Cumbernauld's 99 for rain means it's crapper than 99% of towns.
- Rain99/100186 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Deliberate fires71/10031.5 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Broadband44/1007.8% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 6.6% across the North Lanarkshire council area
- Serious road collisions43/1001.6 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Anti-social behaviour35/1006.9 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Food hygiene31/1004.1% told to improve, of the 247 food businesses inspected
- Sewage spills28/10085.0 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Air pollution28/1008.1 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 5.1 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Criminal damage and arson23/1005.1 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
| 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.
Cumbernauld by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 41.8 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Better: 23% lower than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 72 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 14.3 per 10,000 people, 2.6x the typical Scottish town's 5.6
What's left on the high street
- 11 pubs, 3 hairdressers, 3 bookmakers, 2 banks, 2 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 5.6% of takeaways inspected told to improve (2 of 36) Better: 38% lower than the typical Scottish town's 9.1%
- 2 bank branch closures announced since 2022 Worse: 4.0 per 100,000 people, 18% higher than the typical town's 3.4
- 18 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 3.6 per 10,000 people, 2.3x the typical town's 1.6
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.32am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 1.1% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 2.2x the typical town's 0.5%
- 7.2% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 54% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,293 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
Cumbernauld 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.