COUNTY bosses are aiming to shoot Hampshire into the “premier league” of superfast broadband – by raiding council coffers.

The council’s reserves have risen from £307m in 2012 to £418m last March – a hike of more than £100m.

Now Tory leader Roy Perry has announced plans to take a multi-million sum from savings to subsidise a private company to increase speeds across the county – on top of the £5m of taxpayers’ money already pledged.

Cllr Perry told a meeting of the full council on Thursday (July 18) the aim was to achieve 98 per cent of households and businesses with minimum speeds of 24 megabits per second (Mbps) by 2017.

The plans are likely to be welcomed by business leaders but unions and opposition councillors have called for reserves to head of cuts in frontline services and jobs.

The county has already done a deal with BT Group to roll out superfast broadband to 90 per cent of premises by 2015 – up from 70 per cent last year. The first premises will benefit in January 2014.

Under the current plans, the remaining 10 per cent will be able to access broadband at speeds of less than 2Mbps – the basic standard.

But Cllr Perry said the Cabinet wanted to do more.

He said: “With these proposals coming on top of the existing plans we aim to put Hampshire at the very high end of coverage and performance criteria of any county in England.

“This will be one of the most significant investments we make in the life of the council for the benefit of young, old, families, rural, urban, learning and business.”

Cllr Perry said details were confidential for commercial reasons but the aim was to be in the “premier league” of broadband by 2017, beating the government target of 24 mbps for 94 per cent of households.

He said: “This will be a new multi-million pound investment but that is precisely what I think reserves are for – to invest in the future.”

His pledge comes after a National Audit Office report was highly critical of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport for its handling of the rollout of rural Broadband.

Hampshire will miss the target of 90 per cent coverage of at least 24 megabits per second (Mbps) by May 2015 by four months but other areas are running two years behind schedule, including the Isle of Wight.

However, the county has insisted its plans are “on track” and offer outstanding value for money, with the lowest cost-per-premises of any area.

In Hampshire, councils have put in £5m for new infrastructure, a sum matched by the Government, with the remaining £3.8m invested by BT.