Homes in the most rural areas of Epping Forest will be able to access super-fast broadband after the district was chosen as a pilot area for a new project.

The Rural Challenge Project was agreed by Essex County Council (ECC) yesterday.

It will cost an initial £7.5million and will be funded by Epping Forest District Council, Essex County Council and fibre broadband operator Gigaclear plc.

Gigaclear will deploy Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) technology to more than 4,500 properties enabling these homes and businesses access to broadband speeds of 50Mbps and up to 1000Mbps.

Digital Economy Minister, Ed Vaizey, said: "The Superfast Essex programme has made tremendous progress in rolling out superfast broadband to rural communities.

“I'm delighted to hear that even more people and businesses in Epping Forest will now benefit from this project with Gigaclear as part of our commitment to ensure 95 per cent of the UK has access to superfast speeds by 2017."

Homes and businesses in the north-east of the district will benefit first.

These are Fyfield, Stapleford Tawney, Bobbingworth, Ongar, Moreton, Magdalen Laver, High Laver, Little Laver, and Theydon Mount.

People living in High Ongar, Willingale, Abbess Beauchamp and Berners Roding, Stapleford Abbotts, Stanford Rivers, Matching, North Weald Bassett, Lambourne, Theydon Garnon, Sheering, Epping Upland, Theydon Bois and Chigwell will also benefit.

Epping Forest District Council is supporting the project with a £84,000 contribution.

Councillor Alan Lion, portfolio holder for technology, said: “Faster broadband speeds means that our residents and businesses based in rural areas of the district will benefit from much better connectivity than currently available and will provide a much more reliable internet service.”

Gigaclear plans to begin work in November 2015, with the first customers expected to gain access to the new broadband services a month later.

Once the Gigaclear fibre network is available customers will need to switch or buy a fibre broadband service.

The Rural Challenge is part of the Superfast Essex broadband rollout programme, planning to enable 116,000 premises across Essex to access broadband speeds of 24Mbps or more by 2020.