Wiltshire Council’s much-maligned highway maintenance contract will be analysed by its independent scrutiny committee, amid ongoing complaints over the service provided.

The five-year £150 million contract, which covers pothole repair, grass cutting and highway maintenance, was handed to Balfour Beatty Living Places in June.

The multi-national contractor announced last month it had lost £1 million since taking on the deal, and was making redundancies across its highways team.

Wiltshire Council rejected calls for an internal investigation into the contract in July, when it claimed “teething problems” were a result of unexpected weather, and because staff who moved from English Landscapes, the previous highways contractor, needed additional training after transferring to Balfour Beatty.

However, today it was agreed for the scrutiny committee to look into its performance.

Cllr John Thomson, cabinet member for highways, said: “I said I felt it would be the right thing for scrutiny to look at it on an annual basis.

“I would welcome a fast-track scrutiny of the performance of the contract, and how we are improving performance, and the committee generally thought that would be a good idea, and they have set up a special task group so they can do it quickly.

“It would have been very good for the scrutiny members to understand how we manage the contract and monitor it, and how we are getting the performance of BBLP up to where we want them.

“Generally there have been a lot of very positive comments about the big projects they are handling, such as the regeneration project in Malmesbury, but there obviously is concern about the other aspects.”

Cllr Thomson presented a report to the scrutiny committee which assessed the handling of the contract so far.

He said: “Scrutiny said they were very pleased to receive such an honest and open report.

“It was nice to have something where someone was brutally honest about where we are, and the lead officer welcomed the fact that scrutiny was going to look at the performance. We thought that was important.

“They are asking for volunteers to be on the committee, and I am hoping the people who have concerns about the contract will on that committee.”