Crap Towns / Fife / Dalgety Bay
Dalgety Bay
7/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 7. 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
Dalgety Bay. Nothing ever happens.
A neat commuter town on the Forth, built on an old airfield, with a beach that was radioactive for years.
Dalgety Bay is a neat spread of commuter homes on the Forth for people who work in Edinburgh and like a view of it. It was built on an old naval airfield, and the planes they broke up there left radium in the foreshore. It took decades of rows to get the beach cleaned. It's done now, and they'd like you to stop mentioning it.
Otherwise nothing happens. The wheelie bins have never been safer, crime's about half the typical Scottish town's, and the teenagers have nowhere to go. There's a Greggs. Per head, that's nearly four times the typical town's ration.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Dalgety Bay's 67 for rain means it's crapper than 67% of towns.
- Rain67/100139 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Broadband62/1006.6% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 16.9% across the Fife council area
- Sewage spills60/100403 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Anti-social behaviour15/1004.1 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Criminal damage and arson12/1004.2 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Food hygiene12/1000.0% told to improve, of the 51 food businesses inspected
- Serious road collisions9/1000.9 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Air pollution9/1005.7 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.5 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Deliberate fires3/1003.9 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
| 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 |
| 7 | Dunfermline | 18 |
| – | Dalgety Bay | 7 |
| 8 | St Andrews | 5 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Dalgety Bay by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 28.2 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Better: 48% lower than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 1 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Better: 1.1 per 10,000 people, 80% lower than the typical Scottish town's 5.6
What's left on the high street
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.34am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.4% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Better: 20% lower than the typical town's 0.5%
- 0.0% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: Against the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,448 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 5% 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
Dalgety Bay 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.