Crap Towns / Dumfries and Galloway / Locharbriggs
Locharbriggs
15/100Crap Score
Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 15. 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
Got something to say about Locharbriggs? Write in.
agree it's crap have defended it
Locharbriggs. Built of the good stuff.
A quarry village bolted on to Dumfries, with red sandstone, quiet streets, one pub and a bookies.
Locharbriggs dug the red sandstone that went into half the posh buildings in Scotland and the steps of the Statue of Liberty, and now it's a quiet estate on the edge of Dumfries with a pub and a bookies. Crime runs at about half the typical Scottish town's, nobody's been badly hurt on the roads in five years, and when the nettles take over the paths the locals cut them back themselves, because the council won't.
The catch is the food: a third of the places inspected got told to sort themselves out. That's honking for somewhere with so little else wrong. Bring a piece.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Locharbriggs's 90 for broadband means it's crapper than 90% of towns.
- Broadband90/10011.7% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 33.1% across the Dumfries and Galloway council area
- Rain88/100164 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Food hygiene88/10033.3% told to improve, of the 12 food businesses inspected
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Deliberate fires20/1009.1 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Anti-social behaviour18/1005.1 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Criminal damage and arson8/1003.8 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Sewage spills2/1000.0 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
- Air pollution1/1002.9 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.4 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Serious road collisions1/1000.0 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dumfries | 87 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.– | Locharbriggs | 15 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Locharbriggs by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 25.8 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Better: 53% lower than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 144 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 263 per 10,000 people, 47x the typical Scottish town's 5.6
What's left on the high street
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 1.12am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.9% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 1.8x the typical town's 0.5%
- 13.6% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 12% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,287 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 16% lower than the typical town's 1,532
Dumfries and Galloway council
- £1,579 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £74 less than the Scottish average
- 57% of Dumfries and Galloway council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Worse: 1.6x Scotland's 36%
- 38 ombudsman complaints decided in 2025-26, 1 upheld Better: 26.1 per 100,000 residents, 25% lower than Scotland's 34.7
- 98.4% of the streets checked passed as clean (2025-26) Better: 7% higher than Scotland's 92.2%
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Locharbriggs 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.