AN ABERCARN family have started fundraising after an arson attack last weekend destroyed their taxi business and left them ‘with nothing’.

Chris Hall and his family could only look on in horror as their premises for the last 17 years, C & H Travel UK on Bryn Road, Llanfach, was on fire in the early hours of Saturday, August 20.

Mr Hall, 56, said: “We lost everything in that fire and now we are having to start again from scratch with nothing. I remember getting woken up by our neighbour who had heard a loud bang at 4am and just tried to save as much of what I could.

“I didn’t even think about what I was doing. I moved two of the taxis nearest to the office out of the way as quick as possible but I couldn’t do anything about the office as it was so bad. Waiting there with my family and our neighbour for the fire service to come seemed to take forever.”

The fire started between 2.30am to 3am after the attack on the C & H Travel UK premises, which was partially caught on CCTV by Mr Hall’s next door neighbour.

Mr Hall said: “It has hit us hard, especially my wife, but our landlord has promised us that they are going to rebuild the site, how long that will take I don’t know. At the moment we are arranging to buy a cabin and start all over again. We may not have much now like in 1999 but we have 17 years of experience.

“We lost all of our bookings which were on the computers and they were melted beyond repair. It’s all the other things as well, like we had had to get new keys sorted on all the cars as the spares were destroyed in the fire and we have had to repair one car that had partially melted.”

So far, more than £1,600 has been donated to the fundraising page online, set up by Mr Hall’s daughter Jenna, whilst another taxi company has donated a new computer to them.

Mr Hall added: “It makes you angry to think that someone would do such a thing and I can’t imagine who would as we haven’t had any trouble before. We never had any insurance on the site as we never had any trouble but of course we should have done. I’m just waiting to see if the police can get anything on the people from the CCTV.”

One car has been damaged beyond repair which they are looking to replace but Mr Hall confirmed that most of his customers have been in contact to re-confirm their appointments and that a full fleet of five cars will be back up and running next week.

To make a donation, visit http://bit.ly/2bxkNL1.

The fire is being treated as deliberate and police are investigating. Anyone with information is asked to call 101 quoting log 91 20/08/16.