Two children from North Ayrshire are devastated after having holiday plans cancelled at the last minute after being told they’d not be able to head abroad with their foster family just days before they were due to fly.

David Burns, the foster father, requested permission from the North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership to take the kids away way back in March.

They planned to go away to Spain to celebrate his partner’s 50th birthday and mistakenly believed this would be fine with the council.

The council had granted them similar requests before. They asked permission to go to Spain to celebrate a relative’s 70th and were granted the request on the condition that the kids kept up with all school work, which was easy enough, considering David’s partner used to be a teacher.

However this time David was told that the kids could not miss any more school, also citing Covid concerns.

David said: “They say the kids can’t miss more school however my partner is an ex teacher and both kids vastly improved their education under lockdown (we have reports from the schools/ teachers to back this up). Also Covid - we are going to Spain where the cases are lower than here.”

However, if that’s what they decided, they would have accepted that and planned something else. What’s really riled David up is that they’ve had to wait six months for an answer, only to be told six days prior to the flights departing that they are not allowed to go.

He said: “None of this would have been an issue had they just said no in March, instead they wait till the very last minute. Honestly the kids are both devastated and angry, they are really struggling with this decision.”

We asked the North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership the reasons for their decision and why it took so long for a response, a spokesperson responded:“We are unable to comment on individual cases.”