Crap Towns / Fife / Kirkcaldy
Kirkcaldy
76/100Crap Score
Known as the Lang Toun.
241st crappest of 984 towns, and the crappest in Fife. 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
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Covered the world's kitchen floors in lino. Now it's shut shops and a hole where the Postings used to be.
Kirkcaldy is the Lang Toun, four miles of it stretched along the Forth, and it made the lino for kitchen floors all over the world. You used to smell the place before the train got in. The High Street's shuttered, the Postings is a gap waiting for somebody to have an idea, and the one thing doing well is the vape shop: Kirkcaldy has nearly three for every one the typical town has, size for size.
It's the crappest town in Fife, and that's Fife. The police record nearly twice the crime per head of the typical Scottish town. Shoplifting's nearly four times. The bins get torched and the deliberate fires are going up. Down the coast at Kinghorn the harbour beach's bathing water was rated Poor.
The Links Market fills the prom every April, the longest street fair in Europe, and for a week the place is dodgems and candyfloss. Then it leaves. Raith fans will tell you Dunfermline's worse. Dunfermline got made a city, so it's hard to make that stick.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Kirkcaldy's 93 for criminal damage and arson means it's crapper than 93% of towns.
- Criminal damage and arson93/10012.2 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Deliberate fires86/10040.8 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Anti-social behaviour82/10012.7 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Serious road collisions78/1002.2 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Rain74/100150 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Broadband69/1008.5% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 16.9% across the Fife council area
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Food hygiene43/1004.8% told to improve, of the 458 food businesses inspected
- Sewage spills25/10066.0 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Air pollution5/1005.0 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.3 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 |
| 7 | Dunfermline | 18 |
| 8 | St Andrews | 5 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Kirkcaldy by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 102 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Worse: 1.9x the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 1 reports of fly-tipping on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026
- 1 of 2 bathing waters here or within 2 km rated Excellent in 2025; 1 rated Poor
What's left on the high street
- 16 pubs, 46 hairdressers, 8 charity shops, 5 bookmakers, 4 vape shops, 4 banks, 3 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 9.2% of takeaways inspected told to improve (6 of 65) About the same: About the same as the typical Scottish town's 9.1%
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Better: 2.0 per 100,000 people, 41% lower than the typical town's 3.4
- 9 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 1.8 per 10,000 people, 13% higher than the typical town's 1.6
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 1.27am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 1.0% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 2x the typical town's 0.5%
- 4.2% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 73% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,432 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 7% 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
Kirkcaldy 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.