Many local authority areas, including in London, still have broadband black spots, according to a consumer watchdog.

Research from Which? has revealed that while rural Scotland and Wales have Britain’s slowest average connection speeds, many urban areas still have ‘sluggish’ broadband.

The Orkney islands (3Mbps), Allerdale (5.7Mbps), Shetland Islands (6.7Mbps), Argyll and Bute (7Mbps), Moray (7.1Mbps), Fermanagh and Omagh (7.4Mbps) and Ceredigion (7.5 Mbps) were the worst affected local authority areas.

Tower Hamlets (10.1Mbps), Westminster (10.8Mbps), Stroud (11.4Mbps), Tunbridge Wells (11.4Mbps), North East Derbyshire (11.5Mbps), and Canterbury (11.5Mbps) were also found to be lagging well behind other areas.

The fastest local authority area for broadband speeds was commuter borough Broxbourne with an average 32.5Mbps.

Other urban areas benefiting from fast internet include Crawley (32.3Mbps), West Dunbartonshire in Scotland (29.6Mbps), Watford (29.5Mbps), Rushmore (28.9 Mbps), Nottingham (27.6Mbps) and Cambridge (27.3Mbps).

The fastest broadband in London was found in the borough of Harrow (26Mbps) followed by Barking and Dagenham (25.7Mbps) and Greenwich (23.6Mbps).

‘Having a good broadband connection is a basic requirement for many important everyday tasks, so it is unacceptable that millions of people around the country are still struggling to get what they need,’ said Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home products and services.

‘The Government and the regulator must now press ahead with plans to provide a bare minimum connection speed of 10 Megabits in every household and make sure that no one is at a disadvantage because of where they live.’