An extra 260 households in West Oxfordshire will not be missing out on high-speed broadband thanks to a new deal.

West Oxfordshire District Council is investing in a project run by Cotswolds Broadband to deliver the service to the 10 per cent of the predominantly rural district that BT is unable to cater for.

The supply of high-speed broadband in rural Oxfordshire has become a major issue, with some communities having internet connections that run slower than one megabit per second.

The Government’s existing policy is to roll out superfast broadband of 24 mbps to 95 per cent of the UK by December 2017.

Cotswolds Broadband chief executive Hugo Pickering said his company now expected to connect about 6,100 households in West Oxfordshire, up from 5,839, due to BT servicing fewer premises than initially planned.

Cotswolds Broadband is close to signing off contracts with suppliers of fibre-optic cabling and wireless infrastructure, and contract negotiations with Broadband Delivery UK for £1.6m in Government funding are expected to be finalised by next month.

“We’ll have a more accurate timeline once we get the network design down,” he said.

Costwolds Broadband will act as a wholesaler between householders and internet service providers.