Inverkeithing

Inverkeithing has the look of a place that's been quietly getting on with things for centuries — stone terraces along the high street, a working relationship with the Forth rather than a decorative one, and none of the polish that a tourist economy would demand. This is a village that houses people who work elsewhere, not one performing for visitors.

The housing stock tells its own story: a median price a little under £175,000, with the longer trend pointed upwards even if any single year wobbles around that line. That's a figure that puts Inverkeithing well below what you'd pay across much of Scotland's commuter belt, and it sits inside a council tax band D charge that's lower than the national median too — a place where your money still buys a front door rather than half of one. The deprivation and income deciles sit in the middle of the national spread, neither flagged as struggling nor mistaken for anywhere affluent — a solidly average village by the numbers that make up a country's ledger.

What stands out, and what tends to decide whether people stay, is the health grade — an A, well ahead of everything else on the card, and a genuine outlier against a background of respectable B-range marks for housing, environment, and safety. That pattern is worth sitting with: this isn't a village of extremes, it's one where most things are solidly above the Scottish average and one thing — how well people here actually feel — is markedly better than that. Safety reads as flat rather than improving or worsening, which in practice means nothing dramatic is happening in either direction, a fairly reassuring kind of boring. Full-fibre coverage reaching close to two-thirds of properties means most working-from-home setups won't be fighting the connection, and the connectivity grade backs that up as a genuine strength rather than an afterthought.