An extra £10 million towards a project to get fast broadband to the most rural areas of Suffolk should help get 95pc of homes connected by 2017.

The money will be added to Suffolk and Norfolk’s Better Broadband projects, which have been running since 2012 – and until now aimed to get 90% of properties connected.

Progress to having superfast broadband available to 90% of properties by 2015 is on target – but as work continues the need to get the technology to more rural properties became clear.

The overall cost of the second phase of Better Broadband project is about £40 million – including £20 million from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which had to be match-funded locally.

The £10 million from the Local Growth Fund is key part of the match-funding. But the LEP said that it would also focus on getting the further 5% connected.

The original deals between BT and the county councils meant that 85% of homes and businesses in Suffolk could expect to access high-speed broadband services of at least 24Mbps (megabits per second) by the end of 2015.