ALMOST 60,000 homes across Hampshire are now benefitting from superfast broadband.

County council chiefs say 58,200 homes and businesses have benefited from their superfast broadband programme – and another 38,800 will within the next three years.

As previously reported, the council and its partners launched a £28m programme to connect 97,000 premises that would otherwise have been left out by the commercial roll-out of broadband.

Their ambition is to ensure that 95 per cent of homes and businesses across Hampshire have access to high-speed broadband by September 2018.

The programme reached its target of 54,000 premises by the end of the 2014/15 financial year in March, allowing more residents to access internet speeds ranging from 24 to 76 Mbps (megabites per second).

Super-fast broadband is delivered to peoples’ homes by fire-optic cables as opposed to older copper cables, which have no upper limit for internet speed.

Cash from various government funding pots has been used to provide superfast internet access to some of the county’s most remote properties, in Test Valley and the New Forest.

Council leader Roy Perry said: “By the end of 2015, around 91 per cent of premises will be connected, and we are well-placed to take action to further extend the existing programme. I now look forward to the Government’s proposals on how to address the final five per cent – ensuring the whole of Hampshire can benefit.”

Communities that fall outside the council’s programme are being invited to bid for some of £400,000 of funding to “self-fund” superfast broadband.

Successful bids could see up to 50 per cent of the total cost provided by the council’s grant, with a limit of £500 per premises.

People living in an area not yet scheduled to receive better broadband are urged to contact the council to register their interest.

The scheme will be launched in November when more details will be published.

The Government’s Innovation Fund trial, aimed at improving broadband speeds in rural areas across the country, has also been extended to Privett in Hampshire, after 700 premises were upgraded in the area around Winchester.