RESIDENTS in Warrington North are owed more than £200,000 in compensation due to poor broadband speeds according to new figures.

Ofcom has revealed that a total of £246,000 in compensation to constituents, with the rolling out of fibre optic broadband in areas including Burtonwood, Winwick, Culcheth and Croft has been ‘slow’.

Warrington North MP Helen Jones has called for action.

She said: “Discussions I have had with service providers over the years has resulted in some progress but the position is still far from satisfactory.

“Less than half of all UK broadband connections are superfast, calling into question the government target to provide super-fast speeds to 95 per cent of all UK premises by the end of this year.

“That is why I’m supporting the call by the British Infrastructure Group of MPs to introduce a comprehensive automatic compensation scheme that allows customers to be refunded for receiving unreasonably slow broadband download speeds.

“Millions of properties across the country fail to meet the proposed minimum download speed of 10mb/s and could be eligible for receiving compensation from their providers.”

Mrs Jones has called for Ofcom to continue publishing data on disparities between actual and advertised broadband speed, clear guidance on what compensation needs to be paid as well as communication from companies on what they owe to customers and a statutory code of practice.

She added: “When asked to outline their process for claiming compensation, each provider described a complicated and protracted process which suggests a lack of transparency in broadband customer services.

“It is unacceptable that there is still no industry wide standard for compensation in the telecoms sector.

“Ofcom, the government and broadband providers must work to implement an automatic compensation policy as a matter of urgency to make sure that customers do not continue to pay for sub-standard speeds and service.”