The government has said that new legislation will allow telecoms companies to deliver faster broadband to nine million people living in blocks of flats across the UK.

According to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the new law will make it easier to install faster internet connections in blocks of flats, where often landlords "ignore requests for access from broadband firms".

The government said that previously tenants living in the UK's estimated 480,000 blocks of flats would usually have had to wait for a landlord's permission to have a broadband operator enter their building to install a faster connection.

Broadband companies say that around 40 per cent of their requests for access to install connections receive no response.

Under the new Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act, it is estimated that an extra 2,100 residential buildings a year in England and Wales will be connected as a result.

An amendment to building regulation law will also allow new homes in England to be built with gigabit broadband connections.

The government says that updates to existing legislation will mean that more people moving into new homes will have a gigabit-capable broadband connection ready when construction is complete and avoid “costly and disruptive installation work” after the home is built.

Gigabit broadband is currently available to 72 per cent of the UK.

“Nothing should stop people from seizing the benefits of better broadband, whether it is an unresponsive landlord or a property developer’s failure to act,” said digital infrastructure minister Julia Lopez. “Thanks to our new laws, millions of renters will no longer be prevented from getting a broadband upgrade due to the silence of their landlord, and those moving into newly built homes can be confident they’ll have access to the fastest speeds available from the day they move in.”

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