Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 4,048 in the Falkirk council area, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,715.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Brightons has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is cost of living (B+): the 251st most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £197,100, 4.4 years of area income; rent £930 a month. Its weakest is health (C+): life expectancy 80.2 for men, 83.5 for women.
The 3 things Brightons 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 Brightons is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Brightons has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 1 building inside Brightons’s locality, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Brightons.
6% rent privately, below Falkirk council area’s towns (9%) and Scotland’s towns (13%) alike. 182 sales in Brightons’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £197,100. It is the 4th most expensive of 14 towns of 2,500+ in the Falkirk council area.
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.
The town has one school, shown below. 414 pupils attend Brightons’s one primary school.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallacestone Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 414 | – |
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 36% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
2% of commuters who live in Brightons also work there. Working from home was the norm for 36% of workers at the census. At the census, 18% went to work on foot, by bike or by public transport, near Falkirk council area’s towns (17%) and lower than Scotland’s towns (27%). For 30% of commuters, work was under 5 km away.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Disability touches just over a fifth of Brightons’ population. Just over four fifths of Brightons’ residents described their health as good or very good at the census, above both Falkirk council area’s towns (78%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). Men in Brightons can expect to live to 80.2, women to 83.5 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Brightons | Falkirk council area | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 82% | 78% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.1% | 7.2% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 21% | 25% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · No age adjustment applies to these census answers, which flatter younger towns; the Health Grade’s measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them, do allow for age.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Brightons has one scheduled monument. Relative to its size, Brightons keeps 2 listed buildings per 10,000 residents.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Line up the people of Brightons by age and the one in the middle is 45.6. 13% of residents are 15 to 24, above Falkirk council area’s towns (10%) and close to Scotland’s towns (12%). Degrees are held by a third of adults.
50% women, 50% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Brightons | Falkirk council area | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 13% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 21% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 21% | 19% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 13% | 17% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8% | 9.3% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 33% | 26% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Falkirk council area and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Brightons. Best known first.
MuseumCallendar House2.2 km outside town, to the northwest
CastleAlmond Castle1.9 km outside town, to the eastAttractionAttractionFalkirk Distillery1.2 km outside town, to the northAttractionAttractionThe Milk Barn3.2 km outside town, to the westAttractionAttractionThe Kelpies4.1 km outside town, to the northwestMuseumMuseumFalkirk Museums Workshop and Store3.2 km outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brightons | 4,048 | — | — | B+ | — | C+ |
| Polmont | 5,044 | 0.7 | — | A− | — | C+ |
| Redding | 3,812 | 1 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Maddiston | 3,835 | 1 | — | B | — | C− |
| Grangemouth | 16,028 | 2 | — | A | — | D− |
| Hallglen | 3,158 | 2.2 | — | A | — | D− |
| Falkirk | 34,637 | 3.2 | — | A | — | D− |
| Carronshore | 2,880 | 4.1 | — | B+ | — | 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 £197,100, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 251st most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Brightons is £1,715 for 2026–27, less than in 89% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
GCSE results beat 67% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). One state school is inside the town; places are handled by the local council.
Town in Falkirk, Scotland
Brightons is a locality of 4,048 people, in the Falkirk 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.