Street in North Lanarkshire is home to Britain's fastest broadband speeds

A street in North Lanarkshire has the fastest broadband in the UK, an analysis of internet speeds has revealed.

The dubious honour of holding the slowest broadband title goes to a street in Suffolk. Picture: contributed

Benford Avenue, in Newarthill, near Motherwell, saw average speeds peak at 177.01Mbps over the past 12 months – 260 times faster than the slowest street in Britain, which is in Suffolk. Meanwhile, nearby Airbles Crescent, also in Motherwell and just four miles across town from Benford Avenue, is also ranked in the top 20 fastest streets across the UK.

Two streets in Glasgow – Kingsdyke Avenue and Simshill Road – and Mauchline Court in Hamilton are also in the top 20.

However, other Scottish roads – Craigflower Road in Glasgow and Grangemouth’s Pentland Way – are ranked among the 20 slowest in Britain, according to the study from uSwitch.com.

On the street which has Britain’s slowest broadband speeds, Thorpe Lane, in Trimley St Martin, it would take over 21 hours to download a two-hour HD film on Netflix and nearly eight hours to download a 45-minute HD TV show. On Benford Avenue, however, Scots can do the same in just five minutes for the two-hour film and 109 seconds for the TV programme.

Locals in Motherwell said they have taken their super speed broadband for granted.

Father Bergin, priest at St Theresa’s Catholic Church on Benford Avenue, said: “I have broadband in my office in the church and I’ve never thought about it before, but now I think about it, it is quite fast. If I Google something, it is there instantly. I always use it for things like iPlayer and You Tube and I never have any problems playing video. It’s amazing that we are 260 times faster than the slowest street – I’m going to be telling everyone I meet about it.”

Ewan Taylor-Gibson, broadband expert at uSwitch.com, said: “It is astonishing to think that you could fly to Sydney in Australia in the time it takes to download a film on the UK’s slowest street. 
While cable services offering the fastest broadband speeds aren’t available at any of the UK’s slowest streets, fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband should be accessible at more than two-thirds of the most sluggish postcodes, something that might be a surprise to those that have been frustrated enough to run a speed test.”

According to the research, one in five broadband users struggle along with speeds of less than 10Mbps – while nearly one in ten crawl along at less than 5Mbps.