A Scottish town has bucked a 25-year tradition by refusing an award painting them as the country's most dismal town, claiming it was “like a poverty safari”.
The Carbuncle award was first awarded to Airdrie in 2000, before lately being presented to eight more towns and one of them was even presented back to back awards.
Port Glasgow was the intended recipient of the 2025 "Plook on the Plinth" trophy (plook meaning pimple in Scots), but a heated exchange of words at the presentation event led to the award being rejected before it was subsequently scrapped altogether.
John Glenday, a publisher at the architecture and design magazine Urban Realm, said the Plook was “never intended to mock or punch down” but insisted difficult conversations about our struggling towns need to be addressed regardless.
He told GB News: “Inevitably it is a polarising award - the headlines say it all - and we’ve always been conscious of that but our guiding remit was always to raise awareness of places that are struggling.
“We can’t ignore the issues that these places face: decaying buildings; the collapse of the high street; changing economic indicators - these can’t be swept under the rug.”
Mr Glenday admitted that despite the “double whammy” of North Lanarkshire town Cumbernauld receiving back-to-back awards in 2001 and 2005, a combination of effort and time resulted in the town receiving Urban Realm’s “Best Town” award in 2012.
Other winners include West of Scotland towns like Airdrie and Linwood, but further north John O’ Groats and Aberdeen have also been labelled as Scotland’s most dismal town/city.
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Port Glasgow was the intended recipient of the 2025 'Plook on the Plinth' trophy
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Due to the “negative connotations of the Plook”, Mr Glenday said the best way forward was to scrap the award going forward, instead presenting Port Glasgow with the inaugural ‘Heart on your sleeve' award recognising town cohesion in the face of hardship.
Social entrepreneur Kevin Green started PG25 - a campaign to repopulate empty shops in the town’s historic John Wood street in the town’s heritage quarter.
He offered to put the award in the bin for Mr Glenday as it was presented to Port Glasgow, but instead the pair settled to save the award and sit it on the bin.
Mr Green said he “didn’t have any intention of accepting the award” and impressed that the Carbuncle Award in 2025 feels like “a poverty safari”.
He offered to put the award in the bin for Mr Glenday as it was presented to Port Glasgow, but instead the pair settled to save the award and sit it on the bin
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Despite it’s proud heritage as a pillar of Scottish shipbuilding, the 250-year-old town slipped from one economic crisis to the next and today is one of the most impoverished areas in Northern Britain.
Mr Green said: “He struck us as a Monday morning quarterback coming in telling us all the stuff we already knew.”
Despite Port Glasgow’s rebuttal to the award ending its 25-year run, Mr Green doesn’t take credit for its retirement.
“It’s about infrastructure,” he continued, “it’s about the force of the people and the potential of the people and the potential of the town - that’s what’s got the award scrapped.
“It’s not me that’s got the award scrapped - it’s the potential of Port Glasgow that got it scrapped and it only took John five minutes off camera to actually see the potential of Port Glasgow."
The publisher admitted he returned home with the angry pimple of a trophy before admitting the Plook had had its day - thus Port Glasgow was awarded the inaugural "Heart on your sleeve" award.
“It’s an award to counter with yin to the Plot’s yang,” explained Mr Glenday, “coming through as a more positive twist to the award that the community felt they were able to embrace without the negative connotations of the Plook but still get people talking about where they’re going and what happens next.”
Mr Green will continue his work to further the ambitions of Port Glasgow residents and hopes that others see Port Glasgow’s potential as quickly as Urban Realm, beginning with “its potential to cure acne” as the plucky port popped the plook once and for all.