BUSINESSES and residents across the Cotswolds are fed up with 'unacceptable' mobile phone signal and are demanding action.

Councillors urged chairman of Cotswold District Council Cllr Clive Bennett to write to mobile phone companies, requesting improvement.

Members pointed out that while people living in the city jokily expect not to have signal in the countryside, Cotswold residents believe it is now unacceptable for the district to still be struggling along without signal in the 21st century.

Mike Edwards, from North Cerney, runs his music business from his home and said the lack of signal heavily impacts on his work.

“I get text messages for work about a day late,” he said. “It’s so frustrating. 3G is non-existent. I pay £32 a month for my contract but I don’t get everything I am promised.”

His mobile signal is so bad that Mike even has to explain the issue in his answer phone message, instructing people to try his landline instead.

Even businesses in Cirencester, the capital of the Cotswolds, have reported the same trouble.

“I've never had 4G here,” said Chris Roche, who owns menswear store ThirtySix in the Market Place.

“Reception in particular seems average to poor throughout Cirencester with EE. 4G would be increasingly good for us as we could offer PayPal payments instore - seems a pretty common payment method among the 16-20 age group.”

Cllr Paul Hodgkinson spoke at this week’s council meeting and said even poorer countries had achieved good mobile phone coverage before the UK.

“If you live in an isolated village you do want reassurance that you can contact someone,” he said at this week’s CDC meeting.

“I was talking to someone from India who said he couldn’t believe we are having this problem in the UK. He said ‘even we, as a third world country have sorted this’.”

Cllr Juliet Layton, who is also supporting the campaign to improve phone signal, said she often worries while out driving.

“When driving on the North Cerney road to Cheltenham, I was praying I wouldn’t break down because my phone would not cope with that,” she said.

Lizzie Fey, who runs a mobile pet business in Lechlade, was left unable to contact her clients earlier this year when her mobile provider Vodafone suffered a faulty mast.

Although the problem is now fixed and she said she is happy with her signal, she is aware that other people in the area are not.

“It’s imperative,” she said. “I’m out first thing in morning and back last thing at night. I would find it impossible without.”