Crap Towns / Fife / Cupar
Cupar
24/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 24. 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
Cupar. Keep out of the Eden.
Fife's old county town. The council left for Glenrothes and the sewage stayed.
Cupar was Fife's county town until the council packed up for Glenrothes. Now it's a market town for the farms round about, with four times the typical town's share of charity shops and a Greggs to keep the farmers going.
The River Eden runs right through the middle, and the storm overflows round it spill for more than seven times as long, per head, as the typical town's. You wouldn't want to paddle.
There's an old Scots saying, he that will to Cupar maun to Cupar: if somebody's dead set on going, let them. Nobody's ever worked out why they'd want to.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Cupar's 94 for sewage spills means it's crapper than 94% of towns.
- Sewage spills94/1002,020 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Rain51/100128 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Broadband50/1004.0% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 16.9% across the Fife council area
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Food hygiene39/1003.9% told to improve, of the 102 food businesses inspected
- Anti-social behaviour25/1006.0 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Criminal damage and arson23/1005.1 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Serious road collisions21/1001.1 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Deliberate fires10/1006.8 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Air pollution1/1003.6 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.2 of fine particles, 2024 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kirkcaldy | 76 |
| 2 | Cowdenbeath | 62 |
| 3 | Methil | 53 |
| 4 | Glenrothes | 52 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.5 | Rosyth | 30 |
| 6 | Leven | 28 |
| – | Cupar | 24 |
| 7 | Dunfermline | 18 |
| 8 | St Andrews | 5 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Cupar by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 40.4 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Better: 26% lower than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 1 problem reported on FixMyStreet in the year to October 2026 Better: 1.1 per 10,000 people, 95% lower than the typical Scottish town's 20.1
What's left on the high street
- 5 pubs, 7 hairdressers, 5 charity shops, 1 bookmaker, 1 vape shop, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 11.3 per 100,000 people, 3.3x the typical town's 3.4
- 4 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 4.5 per 10,000 people, 2.8x the typical town's 1.6
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.47am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.3% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Better: 40% lower than the typical town's 0.5%
- 18.4% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Worse: 19% higher than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,351 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 12% lower than the typical town's 1,532
Fife council
- £1,574 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £79 less than the Scottish average
- 32% of Fife council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 11% lower than Scotland's 36%
- 127 ombudsman complaints decided in 2025-26, 2 upheld About the same: 34.1 per 100,000 residents, about the same as Scotland's 34.7
- 96.1% 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
Cupar 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.