South Shropshire broadband speeds near bottom of UK league

The latest league tables show south Shropshire was among the worst performing areas in the country, with less than half of the population having access to internet speeds over 30mbps.

Ludlow constituency, which covers most of the south of the county, was at 624th place, with 44.1 per cent connected to superfast broadband, according to information website Thinkbroadband.

On the borders of south Shropshire things are even worse, with Brecon and Radnorshire placed 638th, with 28.2 percent connected to superfast speeds, Montgomeryshire 641st, with 25.9 percent, and North Herefordshire 642nd with 23.3 percent.

The more urban Shrewsbury and Atcham, Telford & Wrekin, and north Shropshire all fare better, though only exact placings for the top and bottom 30 areas have been released, and those constituencies are in neither.

However, with upgrading schemes such as BT and Shropshire Council's Connecting Shropshire partnership being rolled out across the UK, Andrew Ferguson at Thinkbroadband said: "The coverage is improving every day and we generally update our analysis once a week, with the largest improvements in the bottom half of the bar chart."

Patrick Cosgrove, of Shropshire and Marches Campaign for Better Broadband, said it was a sign "all the hype we've heard about roll-out to villages" from Connecting Shropshire was not all it was cracked up to be.

He said: "Just as Shropshire Council gears up to contract for the second phase of broadband roll-out, we learn only 44.1 percent of south Shropshire homes and businesses are able to access high speed broadband.

"A good measure of how well your area is served by broadband is the percentage of premises that can access speeds of 30 mbps or more, referred to as coverage."