Dalry
Village · 5,260 residents
62Good
Good · better than 8 in 10 villages
Check Local Score out of 100 · 60 is typical for the country
Each arc is a topic, coloured by its score
What’s good
- Environment scores 82, well above the typical 60
Check before you view
- Radon: part of the area is in an affected zone, and a home test is cheap
- Road noise reaches 50% of the area
- Transport scores 31, below the typical 60
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Map outline: Official settlement boundary (National Records of Scotland)
Is Dalry a good place to live?
Dalry scores 62/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for environment (82).
It scores lowest on transport (31).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Dalry in Scotland, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Dalry
Dalry's streets are mostly stone-built terraces and semis, close-packed against the Ayrshire hills, with the kind of density you'd expect from a former mill and mining village rather than a scattered rural one. It's a settled place — the median age sits above both the Scottish average and its region, and the population density is actually higher than the national norm, which tells you this is a compact village core rather than a spread of outlying farms.
The housing picture is where Dalry makes its case plainly: a median house price sitting well under the Scottish figures you'd find in most commuter towns, paired with a council tax band D charge that's slightly below the national median. That combination — modest prices, modest council tax — points to a place where a family or a downsizing couple gets more square footage for less outlay than most of the country. Set against an income decile of 2, though, the affordability isn't a bonus so much as a reflection of local wages; this is a lower-income part of Scotland, and the deprivation decile of 4 sits in the same territory. It's worth sitting with that pairing rather than skating past it: cheap housing here isn't a discovery, it's the market pricing in the local economic reality.
Green space is genuinely part of daily life rather than a brochure line — seventeen separate green spaces across the village add up to a fair stretch of open ground for a place this size, so dog walks and kids let loose after school aren't a planning problem. The broadband picture backs up a quieter, more homebound rhythm too: over seventy percent full-fibre coverage is a solid base for anyone working from home or streaming through the evening. Health and safety grades both land solidly above the Scottish average, which matters more here than nightlife does — that grade is the one that dips, a fair signal that this isn't a village for a big night out, more a place you drive out from for that. Two schools serve the local population, modest in number but consistent with a village of this size rather than a market town.