Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 4,820 in Clackmannanshire, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Alva has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is cost of living (A−): the 207th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £138,200, 3.1 years of area income; rent £930 a month. Its weakest is health (D): life expectancy 75.2 for men, 82.7 for women.
The 3 things Alva does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Alva is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Alva has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 9 buildings inside Alva’s locality, 1 of them in the top category.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Alva.
At the census, 77% of people in Alva called their health good or very good, close to Clackmannanshire’s towns (77%) and below Scotland’s towns (78%). A disability affects just over a quarter of people locally.
| Census 2022 | Alva | Clackmannanshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 77% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.5% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 26% | 26% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Because the census answers ignore age, a younger population lifts them; that is why the Health Grade is built on age-adjusted measures like life expectancy and early deaths.
Both of its schools are shown below. Alva’s one primary and one secondary have 1,294 pupils between them. Its two schools are below.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alva Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 356 | – |
| Alva AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 938 | C |
Alva is the cheapest of the 8 towns in Clackmannanshire: its median sale is £138,200. Private renters make up 11% of households, higher than Clackmannanshire’s towns (9%) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (13%). The social rented sector houses a fifth of households.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL · The Scottish median is our estimate from data-zone sales, brought to early-2025 prices.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 27% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Jobs per working resident: 0.4. The car took 86% of commuters, above both Clackmannanshire’s towns (82%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). 29% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work. About 6% of its commuters stay in Alva for work.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Historic Environment Scotland’s list puts 9 listed buildings inside Alva’s locality (1 Category A, 3 Category B).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
14% are under 15, lower than both Clackmannanshire’s towns (16%) and Scotland’s towns (15%). People 65 and over make up 24% of the town. Alva has a median age of 48.9.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Alva | Clackmannanshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.1% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 24% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 17% | 19% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.9% | 8.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 29% | 26% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Clackmannanshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Alva. Best known first.
Castle · National Trust for ScotlandAlloa Tower4 km outside town, to the south
Castle · National Trust for ScotlandMenstrie Castle1.6 km outside town, to the west
CastleClackmannan Tower4.7 km outside town, to the southeast
CastleSauchie Tower1 km outside town, to the southeast
Historic houseBroomhall Castle1.1 km outside town, to the westPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
12 notable people were born in Alva.
Billy Hunter: Schnabel SC — Dirk Gerardus Andries Schnabel (1870-1933), Public domain · Frederick H. Jackson: BC NDP History Group, CC BY 2.0
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alva | 4,820 | — | — | A− | — | D |
| Tullibody | 8,515 | 1.8 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Sauchie | 6,357 | 1.8 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Menstrie | 2,834 | 2 | — | B | — | C |
| Tillicoultry | 4,482 | 2.4 | — | A− | — | D |
| Alloa | 14,689 | 2.4 | — | A− | — | D |
| Clackmannan | 3,282 | 3.7 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Fallin | 2,769 | 4.3 | — | A+ | — | D− |
No Scottish town has a Safety Grade or an overall grade yet: Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime. People: Census 2022. Miles: centre to centre.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £138,200, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 207th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Alva is £1,684 for 2026–27, less than in 92% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
GCSE results trail 78% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Alva has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Town in Clackmannanshire, Scotland
Alva is a locality of 4,820 people, in the Clackmannanshire council area. TownRatings uses National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities as Scotland’s towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council area, so its figures cover the town itself. Localities split the big settlements into their towns, as ONS’s 2022 boundaries split conurbations in England and Wales.
Built from NRS geography and Census 2022
Sources: Scotland’s Census 2022 (National Records of Scotland), output areas summed to the NRS 2022 locality · Registers of Scotland house price statistics, medians and quartiles of residential sales by 2022 data zone, 2004 to 2025 (the 2023 to 2025 headline brought to early-2025 prices with each council’s medians) · Scottish Government, Council Tax by band 2026-27; Scottish Water charges 2026-27 · Scottish Government, Recorded Crime in Scotland (crimes, offences and clear-up rates by council area, 2016-17 to 2025-26); Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020v2 crime domain and SIMD crime indicators (2014/15, 2017/18), 2011 data zones with Census 2022 residents · ONS gross disposable household income by council (2022), scaled to household income on England and Wales’s councils, with Scotland’s Census 2022 households · DWP / ONS Claimant Count via Nomis (2022 data zones, January to August 2026), over residents aged 16 to 64 at Scotland’s Census 2022; council series since 2015 · Scottish Government school contact list (31 July 2026) and school summary statistics (pupil census, September 2025); School Information Dashboard leavers’ attainment by school, 2022-23 to 2024-25 (data.gov.scot) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.