Crap Towns / Aberdeenshire / Stonehaven
Stonehaven
14/100Crap Score
Known as Stoney.
843rd crappest of 984 towns, and 4th in Aberdeenshire. 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 Stonehaven? Write in.
agree it's crap have defended it
Stonehaven. Deep-fried and proud.
Fireballs at Hogmanay, a castle on a cliff and the chippy that battered a Mars bar first.
Stonehaven gave the world the deep-fried Mars bar and has never stopped going on about it. Dunnottar Castle's up on the cliff and there's a heated seawater pool on the front. At Hogmanay the locals swing balls of fire round their heads down the High Street, which is the most fun anyone's allowed all year. Some of them call it the Monaco of the North. Nobody else does.
Not one of the 19 takeaways inspected got told to improve. Battering a Mars bar is the worst thing those kitchens have done. A pint's harder: there's 1 pub on the map, in a town this size.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Stonehaven's 96 for broadband means it's crapper than 96% of towns.
- Broadband96/10013.9% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 51.5% across the Aberdeenshire council area
- Rain66/100139 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Food hygiene66/1007.1% told to improve, of the 85 food businesses inspected
- Fly-tipping50/100
- Sewage spills47/100249 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2025
- Anti-social behaviour11/1003.5 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Deliberate fires7/1005.4 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Criminal damage and arson5/1003.4 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
- Serious road collisions4/1000.7 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Air pollution0/1003.0 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 4.0 of fine particles, 2024 average
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peterhead | 50 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.2 | Fraserburgh | 35 |
| 3 | Inverurie | 21 |
| 4 | Stonehaven | 14 |
| 5 | Ellon | 6 |
| 6 | Westhill | 5 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Stonehaven by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 23.6 crimes per 1,000 people a year (January 2023 to December 2025) Better: 57% lower than the typical Scottish town's 54.4
- 336 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 301 per 10,000 people, 53.8x the typical Scottish town's 5.6
- Excellent Stonehaven's bathing water rating, 2025
What's left on the high street
- 1 pub, 5 hairdressers, 1 charity shop, 1 bookmaker, 1 bank, 1 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 0.0% of takeaways inspected told to improve (0 of 19) Better: Against the typical Scottish town's 9.1%
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 8.9 per 100,000 people, 2.6x the typical town's 3.4
- 3 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 2.7 per 10,000 people, 1.7x the typical town's 1.6
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 12.43am last bus out on a Wednesday Better: Later than the typical town's 12.14am
- 0.6% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 20% higher than the typical town's 0.5%
- 9.8% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 37% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,429 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) Worse: 7% lower than the typical town's 1,532
Aberdeenshire council
- £1,686 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: £33 more than the Scottish average
- 27% of Aberdeenshire council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Better: 25% lower than Scotland's 36%
- 88 ombudsman complaints decided in 2025-26, none upheld About the same: 33.4 per 100,000 residents, about the same as Scotland's 34.7
- 96.7% 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
Stonehaven 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.