The county, which has received repeated calls for action on its highways, including from the Prime Minister, sees more than 1,000 emergency pothole reports a week.

According to the county council, there has been a major rise in repairs, with the number of crews increased from seven to 25 to tackle its pothole backlog

Since January 2026, contractor M Group has repaired more than 33,000 highway defects – compared to 37,042 potholes filled in the whole of 2024- 25.

This rise in repairs has also come with rising abuse towards the people carrying out the work.

Richard Lovewell, M Group business director, said: “It just makes me really, really sad.

“I think what makes me even sadder is the guys expect it now, and they just think it’s part of the job, and nobody should come to work to be spat at and abused.”

Richard Lovewell at Wildmere Road pothole filling trial (Image: Isabella Harris/NQ)

He explained: “These guys work very, very hard in all weathers and all environments.

“We appreciate that if we’re out with traffic management it can cause some inconvenience, but there’s people getting hit, there’s people getting sworn at, and we’re doing everything we possibly can.

“We’ve brought in body-worn video, we use static CCTV, anything that we can do.”

He added: “We recently had a high-speed police chase come through one of our sites.

“It’s one of the major hazards.

“It’s incursions – we obviously shut roads off, people don’t take any notice of that, and if that’s their shortcut, that’s their shortcut.

“What they’ve got to realise is that they’re putting lives in danger by doing that.

“Let’s be honest, if you worked in a bank, you wouldn’t expect people to line up and swear at you all day.”

Mr Lovewell wants to address “public perception” about pothole roadworks, saying “if we could, we’d resurface every road in Oxfordshire – obviously, as a contractor, we get given certain budgets”.

He added: “If a pothole fails for any reason, from a workmanship issue or anything, we repair that free of charge, and that’s our risk.

“I don’t think people know that.”

He also highlighted some of the better experiences the workers have while out on the job – young children are often fascinated by the roadworks.

Mr Lovewell said members of his work gangs “take the time to chat to the kids, tell them what they’re doing”.

He said kids especially like the ‘Dragon Patcher’ – a “huge, big, fire-breathing pothole machine”.

KAREN JOY BACUDO

Finance Editor

Evolution Funding Group has rebranded as Centeca, reflecting its expansion into a broader automotive commerce and fintech platform.

The business now facilitates more than GBP £6.5 billion in annual advances across finance, digital retail and compliance. Over more than two decades, it has grown from its origins in automotive finance through technology investment, in-house development and acquisitions.

Centeca works with more than 5,500 transacting retailers across the UK. The group also supports four original equipment manufacturer finance journeys, connects with more than 35 lenders and maintains more than 20 technology and data integration partnerships in the automotive sector.

The rebrand comes as car retailing shifts further towards digital processes and connected systems. Retailers, lenders and service providers are under pressure to simplify customer journeys that often span finance, vehicle sales and compliance requirements.

Platform strategy

At the centre of the group’s strategy is a platform model designed to connect parts of the automotive market that have often operated separately. Its system brings together specialist brands, software and data gathered from transaction history and retailer activity.

Built over more than 20 years, that data gives Centeca a broad view of activity across automotive commerce. It uses the information in areas such as decisioning, automation, lender connectivity and internal platform intelligence.

Growth has also come through acquisitions and brand development. The group includes Click Dealer, which provides dealer management systems, websites, digital retail tools and automotive marketing technology; Motion Finance, a motor finance brokerage; Creditas Financial Solutions, which provides appointed representative and compliance support services; and Automotive Compliance, which focuses on regulatory and compliance services.

Its Evolution Funding brand remains focused on automotive finance and lender connectivity. The wider group identity is intended to better reflect the range of services now within the business.

Retail links

One example of the company’s integrated approach is Dealer in a Box, which combines retail, finance and compliance services. The proposition recently received Credit Strategy’s Innovation Award 2026, according to the company.

Centeca is headquartered in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and employs about 600 people across the UK. It describes itself as one of the country’s largest automotive finance and technology providers.

The group is backed by LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, and Carlyle. The rebrand follows a period of sustained growth supported by those investors.

For customers, lending partners and other commercial partners, the name change will not alter existing services, relationships or points of contact.

Lee Streets outlined the rationale for the change.

“This is more than a change of name. It marks an important milestone for the business and recognises how far we have come.

“We have built a strong group of specialist brands, developed significant technology and data capabilities, and created foundations that position us for continued growth. Centeca gives us a group identity that better captures who we are today and where we are heading.

“The future of automotive commerce will be shaped by how well providers connect people, systems and data. Our focus is on creating the infrastructure that enables businesses to operate more effectively within an increasingly digital market,” said Streets, Chief Executive Officer, Centeca.

Duncan Josey, Chief Strategy Officer, Centeca, said the change reflects wider shifts in the structure of automotive retail.

“For many years, automotive retail has been built around disconnected systems and fragmented processes. Finance, retail technology and compliance have operated independently of one another, creating complexity for retailers and friction for consumers.

“As the market continues to evolve, those boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. The name Evolution Funding Group has served us incredibly well, but it no longer reflects the breadth of our proposition. Centeca better represents our role within the wider automotive ecosystem and the unique combination of technology, data and specialist expertise we are bringing together through our platform strategy,” said Josey.

SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Smart CT has acquired 10,000 spare parts, increasing the Reading company’s stock by almost a third.

The additional items have passed quality assurance and are being distributed across more than 50 stocking locations in Western Europe and the US. The expansion will support Smart CT’s work maintaining, replacing and repairing IT infrastructure for manufacturers serving sectors including data centres, government, retail and financial services.

The enlarged inventory brings Smart CT’s total spare parts holding to about 40,000 items, according to Chief Executive Officer Andy Morgan. He said the company had made several purchases over the past year to increase stock in line with customer growth.

Smart CT operates through a partner network that includes manufacturers, managed service providers, system integrators and IT outsourcers. Its field operation now includes 65 engineers positioned to respond to incidents within four hours in some cases, or by the next working day.

The stock expansion comes as Smart CT reports a run of contract wins covering more than 65,000 devices across the UK, Europe, South Africa, Australia and Asia. The agreements cover end-user networking equipment, switches, routers and Wi-Fi access points used by public bodies, retailers, health organisations, utilities and industrial sites.

New contracts

One contract will see Smart CT support 50,000 end-user networking devices and switches used by 70 government organisations, banks, airports, councils, fire and rescue services, and water and delivery companies. A second covers 12,000 devices for 279 health bodies and retail outlets in the UK, Italy, the Czech Republic and South Africa.

The third agreement covers 5,000 routers, switches and Wi-Fi access points for a global soft drink company at production facilities in Europe, Indonesia and Australia. The Australian work marks the company’s entry into a new market.

Morgan said Smart CT moved to secure extra stock after identifying an opportunity in the market.

“We saw the opportunities to add to our stock over the last 12 months and moved in to secure them,” said Andy Morgan, Chief Executive Officer of Smart CT.

He added: “We have made several significant purchases, and it means we now have around 40,000 essential items dispersed across more than 50 warehouses in Europe. This allows us to keep pace with our steady growth in new customers and give even more assurance to our customers across different technologies, including networking, server and storage, and retail point-of-sale technologies.”

“A recent contract win means we also now have 65 engineers strategically placed and ready to respond within as little as four hours. Because we understand our customers so well, we recognise how business-critical it is to get technology connected quickly, so all of this makes us even better prepared.”

Service model

Smart CT said its operating model combines warehouse stock placement with software used to direct engineers and parts to callouts. Morgan said that approach supports the company’s maintenance and repair work for organisations that depend on uninterrupted IT systems.

“Having the right resource in the right place is one matter; having the digital tools to manage this is another. Our platforms guide us on the exact location and timing, and whether to send the most suitable engineer or source the appropriate spare parts, to ensure our maintenance offering is robust and assured,” said Morgan.

“The large enterprises we deal with need to feel confident that they are in safe hands.”

Smart CT said it ended 2025 with a series of contract wins that added tens of thousands of devices under support across retail, government organisations, health bodies and water companies. It also pointed to its service-level performance and its use of repair and parts reuse as part of its operating approach.

“We’ve grown because we have a track record of delivering excellent customer service and reliability,” said Morgan.

“We have a 99 per cent score in our SLAs because we can get engineers out quickly to deploy or replace devices and, where we can, we repair devices or reuse parts to keep them out of landfill, so we are truly part of the circular economy.”

On the latest contract awards, Morgan said one had taken significant effort to secure and described the Australian business as a first for the company.

“We’ve been chasing these deals for quite a while, particularly one of them, and the new business in Australia is a first for us, so I’m delighted to get them all across the line,” said Morgan.

“We were only able to manoeuvre into position to win both deals because of the strong and consistent internal support, so it has been a brilliant team effort,” he added.