Crap Towns / Orkney Islands / Kirkwall
Kirkwall
21/100Crap Score
Locals are Uppies or Doonies. No exceptions.
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 21. 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
Kirkwall. Board up the windows.
Orkney's capital, where the shops get barricaded every Christmas so the town can fight over a leather ball.
Kirkwall's big day out is the Ba'. On Christmas Day and New Year's Day the Uppies and the Doonies shove a leather ball through the streets in one enormous scrum, and the shops board their windows up first. Which side you're on depends where you were born. Locals swear new babies have been driven the long way home to land on the right side.
The rest of the year it's wet, 191 days of it, and the sun shows up for 1,204 hours. Gigabit broadband reaches 11.0% of premises, and on cruise days the passengers take your seat on the bus. There are 5 banks and 2 pubs. That's Orkney's priorities. Stromness has never forgiven Kirkwall for being the capital, and Kirkwall's never noticed.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Kirkwall's 100 for broadband means it's crapper than 100% of towns.
- Broadband100/10089.0% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 70.0% across the Orkney Islands council area
- Rain99/100191 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Food hygiene64/1006.8% told to improve, of the 103 food businesses inspected
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Serious road collisions33/1001.4 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Criminal damage and arson33/1005.8 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Anti-social behaviour15/1004.6 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Deliberate fires4/1004.3 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Sewage spills2/1000.0 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Air pollution0/1002.8 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.1 of fine particles, 2024 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| – | Kirkwall | 21 |
Kirkwall by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
What's left on the high street
- 2 pubs, 8 hairdressers, 4 charity shops, 1 vape shop, 5 banks on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 13.5 per 100,000 people, 4x the typical town's 3.4
- 5 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 6.8 per 10,000 people, 4.3x the typical town's 1.6
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.21am last bus out on a Wednesday About the same: About the same as the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.1% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Better: 80% lower than the typical town's 0.5%
- 3.9% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 75% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,204 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 21% lower than the typical town's 1,532
Orkney Islands council
- £1,669 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £16 more than the Scottish average
- 24% of Orkney Islands council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 33% lower than Scotland's 36%
- 10 ombudsman complaints decided in 2025-26, none upheld Worse: 45.5 per 100,000 residents, 31% higher than Scotland's 34.7
- 97.4% of the streets checked passed as clean (2025-26) Better: 6% higher than Scotland's 92.2%
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Kirkwall 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.