Slow broadband speeds plague large parts of Cooper's Edge estate and a recent survey within  the community has revealed that scores of local residents are suffering with speeds of barely 2 Megabytes per second  (the average download speed across the UK is now 18.7 Mbps).

Low broadband speeds like these mean that it is almost impossible to for people to work from home, students to use the benefits of the internet for doing their school/ college work. It also means residents can't use streaming services like the BBC iPlayer or Netflix.

Many residents have already complained to BT, and felt they had been fobbed off. Several parishioners had been told that it was not ‘financially viable’ to link them up to an optical fibre connection, even though suitable cabling is nearby. The issue has been brought up several times in regional media to no effect.

The aim of this petition is to put pressure on organisations such as BT Openreach, Fastershire, Virgin media and the Local MP to be elected to expedite the roll out of fibre broadband in the area and to show that enough interest exists within the community for fibre broadband.