Crap Towns / Highland / Wick

Welcome to

Wick

Shortest street in the world. Longest wait for a bus.
Twinned with Thurso, for its sins

33/100Crap Score

Known as Week. Thurso calls them Dirty Weekers.

Too small for the table, which starts at 10,000 people, but it still scores 33. Higher scores are crapper.

How the score works

Have your say

Crap Town of the Year 2026/27

See the race

The 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 Wick? Write in.

Wick. The street with one door.

Once the herring capital of Europe. Now it's mostly known for a street with one door on it.

Wick was the busiest herring port in Europe once, and they built Pulteneytown for the boats. The herring went. What's left is a High Street of empty shops and the shortest street in the world, Ebenezer Place, which has one door. It's the only thing most people have heard of.

The locals don't sit about, mind. They report things. 262 problems went in on FixMyStreet in a year, nearly nineteen times the typical Scottish town's rate, 154 of them potholes, plus a fair few cars somebody just left at the side of the road. The last bus goes at 5.38pm and there's none on a Sunday, so you can see why folk hang on to a car, even a dead one.

Thurso calls them the Dirty Weekers. Wick says it was busy workers once. Thurso isn't buying it.

What the score is made of

Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.

Wick's 80 for rain means it's crapper than 80% of towns.

  • Rain80/100157 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
  • Food hygiene79/10010.2% told to improve, of the 59 food businesses inspected
  • Broadband76/1000.9% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 36.7% across the Highland council area
  • Sewage spills68/100
  • Fly-tipping50/100
  • Criminal damage and arson45/1006.6 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
  • Deliberate fires35/10013.8 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
  • Anti-social behaviour15/1004.8 per 1,000 people a year, January 2023 to December 2025
  • Serious road collisions3/1000.3 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
  • Air pollution0/1001.9 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 3.9 of fine particles, 2024 average
Your patch: HighlandTowns in the same county. Top of the table is crappest.
PosTownNationalScore
1Inverness339th66
In danger of becoming nice from here down.–Wick–33

Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.

Wick 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

Getting about, getting online, getting rained on

Highland council

Have a crap-off

Wick against your mate's town, and a match ticket to rub it in.

WickCrap Score 33
v
ThursoCrap Score 38

Ten ingredients. One verdict. Who's crapper? The higher Crap Score takes it.