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Workers in Surrey have been left unable to book a taxi first thing in the morning because firms are too busy ferrying pupils to state schools.
Taxi companies in the county have said they routinely turn down customers who order a lift before 9am because their drivers are fulfilling lucrative taxpayer-funded council contracts.
One resident in Redhill said she found it so difficult to book a morning taxi to transport her to work that she was forced to quit her job.
The Telegraph revealed last week that Surrey County Council spent £5.3m last year on taxis for more than 1,500 children – who do not have special educational needs (Send) – to state schools. When factoring in Send children, the bill swells to £51.1m for 6,985 pupils.
Councils are required by law to offer free transport to school-age children if their nearest “suitable” school is more than three miles away (two miles if they are under the age of eight), or they are not able to walk there safely.
Abdul Mohammed, whose taxi firm Nivoshan was paid £486,380 by Surrey County Council between October and December last year, said his business would not exist were it not for the school contracts.
He said his firm transported between 200 and 300 children every day across the north of Surrey, taking them to schools as far as 14 miles away from their homes.
Mr Mohammed said: “In the mornings, we mostly do school runs between 7am and 9am. We do try to take other bookings, but mostly we are unable to fulfil them because the driver is already allocated to school runs.”
He said that the council contracts made up around 90pc of his revenue, and “without school runs, I would go home to nothing”.
Andrew Bird, managing director of AMK Chauffeur Drive, a large taxi firm that holds school transport contracts with Surrey County Council, as well as Portsmouth City Council and Sussex and Hampshire County Councils, said he has seen a significant increase in children relying on taxis to get to school.
He said: “We tend to bring around 100 children in Surrey to and from school each day. Our business was set up as a local disabled accessible company and we primarily transport children with Send.”
The firm operates a fleet of larger pre-booked vehicles, and home to school transport similarly makes up 90pc of its business.
Mr Bird said that depending on the contract in place with the council, drivers are also paid for their “empty mileage”, this being the journey for the driver to get to the passenger.
He said: “We are certainly transporting more children now than we ever have before.”
Amanda*, a mother of two, from Redhill, said she was forced to give up her job as a teaching assistant at a local primary school because of the difficulty of getting a taxi in the morning.