A MOTHER from Mere says a taxi firm providing transport for her autistic son has been constantly late.

Sandy Sams’ son Jay has transport provided by Value Cars, who were awarded a contract by Wiltshire Council for driving adults with learning difficulties earlier this year.

A spokesman for Value Cars apologised to Mrs Sams, and said it had now cancelled its contract, and Wiltshire Council confirmed another contractor is in place to take over.

Mrs Sams said it was the “final straw” when the firm were over an hour late to pick up her son to take him to a day service at The Meadows. He was due to get picked up between 8.15am and 8.30am but the transport arrived at about 9.40am.

Sandy said: “It is not the first time they have been late picking Jay up. This was the fourth time in a row.”

Sandy says it caused upset for Jay, aged 38, who chewed the tops of his fingers because he was worried about the taxi not turning up.

She added: “He self-harms when he’s upset because he can’t deal with the upset very well and change like them being late.”

A Value Cars spokesman said: “I’m really sorry to hear that Mrs Sams has had cause to complain. It is unfortunate that as we received no formal complaint at the time from either Mrs Sams or Wiltshire Council, the management team were unaware of this and therefore unable to remedy the situation.

“It is always a huge disappointment to us to hear anybody making a complaint, as Value Cars have been servicing Salisbury for 20 years now and have built up a very strong reputation for customer service in that time.

“I can confirm that unfortunately there was an issue on two Monday mornings when the regular driver we had allocated to do the school run was ill and we therefore had to find a replacement driver at the last minute. On another occasion, the driver was late due to heavy traffic around Salisbury. Having interrogated our taxi software system though, I can see that on no occasion were the taxis an hour late as suggested.”

“Please pass my apologies to Mrs Sams and wish her all the best for the future.”

Value Cars said it had finished its contract and a new operator had now taken it on.

A Wiltshire Council spokesman said: “We are very sorry to hear of these issues and the disruption this must have caused. The provider of this service is serving their notice and we have confirmed another contractor. We hope things improve for this family and others when the new contract commences soon.”