A BOY with special needs is facing a 12-mile taxi ride to nursery every day after council officials ruled it was better than teaching him at his village school.

Three-year-old Isaac Cain, of Lanchester, near Consett, County Durham, has been diagnosed with global developmental delay.

The condition means he has communication and learning problems - but doctors admit they do not really know why.

His parents want him to go to the nursery attached to the village primary school, where his older brother, Jacob, aged seven, and sister Georgina, five, are pupils.

But his special needs means he requires one-to-one tuition and Durham County Council says this will be best achieved at The Grove nursery, on the other side of Consett.

The daily taxi ride would cost the taxpayer an estimated £1,700 a year in fares.

His mother, Sarah Young, said: "Isaac may have developmental delay but he is still an individual with thoughts and feelings and it would be unfair to remove him from his local community."

She said he already goes to the village nursery one day a week and will lose his friends in the village if he goes to a different nursery.

She said forcing him to travel to nursery was against the council's policy of inclusion.

Last year, another family in the village succeeded in getting one-to-one tuition at Lanchester Nursery for their child, who was born with Downs Syndrome, after they threatened to take the county council to a tribunal.

"Isaac's education is obviously very important and we greatly appreciate any extra help that he will be given, but we would also like them to consider Isaac's family and social life, as well as his education," said Ms Young.

A Durham Education Auth-ority spokesman said resourc-es for special needs teaching had already been allocated.

"Our overriding concern is to ensure that Isaac's special educational needs are fully met," he said.

"We believe that can be best achieved by his attendance at The Grove, where there are higher than normal staffing levels.

"We can understand Mrs Young wanting Isaac to go to Lanchester, where her other children already attend, but the resources that would be required to finance the extra staff she describes have already been fully allocated to resourced nurseries such as The Grove."