PEOPLE in Cumbria are among the most patient in Britain when it comes to waiting on hold during calls to businesses, new research has revealed.

Although time on hold is regularly viewed as a consumer bugbear, the study of 1,000 consumers, conducted on behalf of PH Media Group, discovered 48 per cent of people in the north west are prepared to wait on the line longer than a minute.

This put them behind only Scots (53 per cent) and Midlanders (51 per cent) as Britain's most patient callers.

People in London and Yorkshire, on the other hand, are quickest to hang up, with only 37 per cent willing to wait for more than 60 seconds.