Having good broadband at home has never been more important after a year spent in lockdowns and working from home.

Covid restrictions over the Christmas period also means more people have had to connect with their loved ones virtually.

Video calls, virtual quizzes and online gatherings have become the norm.

However, for some families in Epping Forest, this year’s frustrations are set to continue with new figures revealing crippling broadband speeds in some neighbourhoods.

Across the local authority, broadband speeds range from a superfast 114.6 megabits (Mbps) per second to a snail-paced 3.2 Mbps, according to data from Uswitch.com.

It means families using Zoom, Skype or Facebook to speak to relatives and friends could be faced with annoying freezes, cut-outs and sound delays.

The average broadband speeds were collected in postcode areas with more than 50 addresses through at least one test in the 12 months up to October this year. In total, nearly 400,000 tests were done.

They revealed, in Epping Forest the postcodes with the slowest speeds were:

1. CM16 6DY, in North Weald Bassett - with an average speed of 3.2Mbps

2. IG10 2PS, in Loughton - average 12.6Mbps

3. IG7 5JP, in Grange Hill - average 15.3Mbps

The postcodes with the fastest speeds were:

1. IG7 5BX, in Chigwell - average 114.6Mbps

2. IG9 6AW, in Buckhurst Hill East - average 83.9Mbps

3. IG10 1TU, in Loughton St Mary's - average 72.3Mbps

Ernest Doku, broadband expert at Uswitch.com, said: “The digital divide that runs through Britain has grown dramatically in the last year, with the fastest street’s broadband more than 5,000 times quicker than the slowest’s.”

He added: “It’s great that more of us are enjoying ultrafast broadband, but we don’t want to see large swathes of the country left behind on shoddy connections that aren’t suitable for modern life.”

This week, the Government set out a draft strategy to connect 1 million homes and businesses with 1,000 Mbps broadband in the hardest-to-reach areas of the UK.

It is part of a plan to provide 85 per cent of the country with broadband capable of the speed by 2025.

Minister for Digital Infrastructure, Matt Warman, said: "We will begin these procurements rapidly so broadband providers big and small can move quickly to get the job done and level up communities with this much faster, next generation broadband."