PlainsNorth Lanarkshire
Band D council tax is £1,555. 3,122 residents make their home in this town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Is Plains a good place to live?
Where it does best is cost of living (A+): homes sell for a median £122,800, about 2.8 times local household income. Its weakest subject is health: life expectancy 71.4 for men, 78.9 for women. Pupils here do less well than most (C): school leavers’ results beat 30% of Scottish towns. Natural hazards weigh less here than in most UK towns (A).
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Plains has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
What makes Plains stand out
The 3 things Plains does most differently from other towns.
How Plains grades
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Plains is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Plains has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The data
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Plains.
Life expectancy in Plains is shorter than in 99% of UK towns
At the census, 76% of people in Plains called their health good or very good, about level with North Lanarkshire’s towns (75%) and below Scotland’s towns (78%). Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects 8.7% of the town. A disability affects 27% of people locally.
| Census 2022 | Plains | North Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 76% | 75% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8.7% | 9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 27% | 26% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Census health answers are raw, so younger towns score better on them; for the Health Grade we use age-adjusted figures like life expectancy and early deaths.
Results at Plains’s schools trail 70% of Scottish towns
Of its 2 schools, one is shown below, with the reason. Some 227 pupils attend Plains’s two primaries.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| St David's Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 123 | – |
Plains earns an A+ for cost of living grade
Social housing holds 30% of households, higher than both North Lanarkshire’s towns (28%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Plains is the second cheapest of the 24 towns in North Lanarkshire, at £122,800. Private tenants account for 11% of households.
Median sale price · 2023 to 2025, at early-2025 prices
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.
No listed buildings in Plains
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 has no building inside Plains’s locality.
Listed buildings by grade · Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Only 14% of commuters in Plains go to work without a car, fewer than in North Lanarkshire’s towns and Scotland’s towns
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.
29% of commuters travelled under 5 km, below both North Lanarkshire’s towns (34%) and Scotland’s towns (44%). At the census, just over four in five commuters went by car. About 4% of its commuters stay in Plains for work. The census counted 27% of workers working mainly from home.
How commuters got to work · March 2022
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Children make up 19% of Plains, above North Lanarkshire’s towns and Scotland’s towns
20% of adults hold a degree, below North Lanarkshire’s towns (23%) and Scotland’s towns (32%) alike. People 65 and over make up 13% of the town. Residents of Plains have a median age of 36.5. Those aged 15 to 24 account for 14% of residents.
Ages · share of residents
Qualifications · residents 16 and older
Women and men · all residents
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Plains | North Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 19% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 14% | 12% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 27% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 26% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 13% | 18% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 26% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.9% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 20% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · North Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Everything we know about Plains
Plains’s neighbours
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plains | 3,122 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Airdrie | 35,847 | 1.9 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Chapelhall | 7,061 | 3 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Coatbridge | 42,256 | 4.2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Holytown | 5,121 | 4.6 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Glenboig | 3,035 | 4.7 | — | A− | — | D |
| Newarthill | 6,956 | 4.8 | — | A | — | D− |
| New Stevenston | 6,298 | 5.2 | — | 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.
Questions about Plains
Is Plains expensive to live in?
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £122,800, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 54th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
How much is council tax in Plains?
Band D council tax in Plains is £1,555 for 2026–27, less than in 98% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Are schools in Plains good?
Plains has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
About Plains
Town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland
Plains is a locality of 3,122 people, in the North Lanarkshire 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
- Population
- 3,122 (Census 2022)
- Council
- North Lanarkshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Area
- 0.3 sq mi (0.9 km²)
- NRS code
- S52000516
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.