Pothole repairs in Cambridgeshire are coming under fire after council officials described the quality of work by major highways contractor M Group as “very poor workmanship” and “ridiculous”.
The £51m-a-year contract, which covers a range of highways services including pothole fixes, has been repeatedly criticised in council audits for patching techniques that fail to last and for repairs that don’t match the areas marked for work.
Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request show officials have found multiple cases of substandard repairs. In Wimblington, a cluster of small overlapping patches on Meadow Way was labelled “ridiculous”, with officers suggesting it should have been resurfaced as one section.
In St Neots, repairs carried out on Priory Road in May were inspected just two weeks later. The council concluded the fixes were “not very good at all”, noting that marked areas were ignored, patch sizes were too small, and the repairs had already begun to fail. “Very poor workmanship in my opinion,” one inspector wrote.
Despite the complaints, Cambridgeshire County Council’s highways committee chairman, Alex Beckett, told the BBC progress was being made. “We are always pushing for better quality,” he said. “We have been challenging our contractors hard… Not all repairs will be perfect, but when they do not meet our standards we do not pay for it or we get them redone.”
The council carries out between 40,000 and 60,000 pothole repairs annually. The current contract with M Group is due for renewal in 2027, and Beckett confirmed “all options” are being considered.
M Group insists it is meeting targets. Operations director Matthew Riches told the BBC the company is “committed to continuous improvement” and had “consistently exceeded 98%” in contractual performance indicators.
But with residents calling for longer-lasting fixes and councillors frustrated at recurring problems, pressure is growing to ensure taxpayers get value for money when the contract comes up for renewal.
