Crap Towns / Angus / Forfar
Forfar
37/100Crap Score
618th crappest of 984 towns, and 3rd in Angus. Higher scores are crapper.
Have your say
Crap Town of the Year 2026/27
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Letters from the locals
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agree it's crap have defended it
Forfar. Eat your bridie and go.
A market town of bridies and a loch, where the hairdressers and the vape shops have quietly taken over.
Forfar is famous for the bridie, a pastry full of mince that Forfarians will fight you over, and for the football result every announcer dreads: East Fife four, Forfar five. Beyond that it's a market town with a loch and a High Street that's been taken over: nearly four times the hairdressers a town its size would have, and more than seven times the vape shops.
The old police headquarters sits empty and the taggers have had it. Food businesses get told to improve at 1.6 times the typical Scottish town's rate, so stick to the bridie. Kirriemuir is up the road, and the two of them have been slagging each other off for as long as anyone remembers.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Forfar's 90 for broadband means it's crapper than 90% of towns.
- Broadband90/10011.9% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 32.7% across the Angus council area
- Food hygiene75/1008.6% told to improve, of the 105 food businesses inspected
- Rain53/100130 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Deliberate fires50/10022.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Criminal damage and arson49/1007.0 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Anti-social behaviour42/1007.3 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Serious road collisions31/1001.3 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Sewage spills8/1003.1 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Air pollution1/1003.6 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.2 of fine particles, 2024 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arbroath | 60 |
| 2 | Montrose | 41 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.3 | Forfar | 37 |
| 4 | Carnoustie | 19 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Forfar by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 53.3 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) About the same: About the same as the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 8 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 About the same: 5.8 per 10,000 people, about the same as the typical Scottish town's 5.6
What's left on the high street
- 12 pubs, 24 hairdressers, 5 charity shops, 2 bookmakers, 3 vape shops, 3 banks, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 6.3% of takeaways inspected told to improve (1 of 16) Better: 31% lower than the typical Scottish town's 9.1%
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.30am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.8% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 1.6x the typical town's 0.5%
- 4.3% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 72% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,438 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 6% lower than the typical town's 1,532
Angus council
- £1,599 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £54 less than the Scottish average
- 33% of Angus council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 8% lower than Scotland's 36%
- 28 ombudsman complaints decided in 2025-26, none upheld Better: 24.5 per 100,000 residents, 29% lower than Scotland's 34.7
- 96.0% 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
Forfar 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.