A COUNTY man has laid claim to living in the UK's slowest village for broadband.

Ian Parsons, from Bishop's Frome, said he conducted three tests on his broadband speed last week and got readings of between 0.31Mbps and 0.33Mbps.

It came after he read a report that Miserden, a village in Gloucestershire, had been found to have the UK's slowest average broadband with an average download speed of 1.3Mbps.

While a film in Miserden would take around 11 hours to download, in Bishop's Frome you could be waiting for an entire day.

Mr Parsons said: "It's been absolutely dreadful. We can't download a film. BBC news reported that it would take residents in Miserden 11 hours to download a film over the internet. At our speeds here it would take a day.

"We were promised it would be done but in fact it has got worse. I have got a speed tester and it's slower now than it was in 2014.

"Rural Herefordshire just gets bypassed. We may be the slowest village in the county which is a small comfort for those of us trying to run businesses. I would give my right arm for a speed of 1.3Mbps."

Miserden was named the slowest village in the country for average broadband speed after Cable.co.uk, a consumer comparison site, released a list of the slowest and fastest speeds recorded by householders.

Mr Parsons said he knew his village had problems but did not realise that it was worse than the supposed slowest in the country.

In a statement, Herefordshire Council said its Fastershire broadband project was established specifically to overcome the market’s failure to provide high speed broadband in hard to reach areas of the county.

"The first phase of the Fastershire rollout aims to enable approximately 90% of the county to access fibre broadband by the end of 2016 and Bishop’s Frome is currently in the process of being fibre enabled as part of this phase," it said.

"Work has taken place to connect fibre to the cabinet in the village, and Bishop’s Frome will soon have the capacity to access faster broadband.

"The future stages of the Fastershire project will focus on the areas that have not been reached by phase one and are yet to benefit from fibre broadband."

For more information about the current Fastershire rollout and the future phases, go to fastershire.com