STEEP steps will make a wheelie bin diktat unworkable, a Moredon grandmother has warned.

Helen Roche, 70, was sent a note by the council this week telling her that her weekly bin bag collection would be replaced with a fortnightly wheelie bin pick-up.

But the Elborough Road resident has warned that the new bin regime, which begins this month, is rubbish – and has slammed the council for not consulting on the plans.

Steep steps leading up to many of the homes on the road would make it difficult for more elderly residents to put their bins out.

Helen, who still works as a retail assistant, said: “It’s just crazy. They’re expecting us to wheel these bins up and down the steps.

“I moved here 10 years ago. Because the steps were so shallow you couldn’t have got a size seven shoe on the step.

“I had my steps rebuilt, but my neighbours still have their original steps.”

There is nowhere on the roadside where the bins could be stored during the week, Helen said. It means residents will need to pull the bins up their house steps in order to store them.

She claims that there has been no consultation on the plans. “This letter has just come through the door,” Helen told the Adver.

“They’ve sent no assessor out to see the road.

“It just seems crazy that the council can spring this on us.”

Helen admitted that the new wheelie bins might deter pests better than the thin blue plastic bin bags.

But she said it was just common sense to do what you could to prevent vermin from sniffing out morsels, such as wrapping chicken carcasses in newspaper.

Helen added: “There’s not been a lot of vermin around recently, although we used to have quite a few foxes that came into the street.”

She said that her final bin collection would be on Friday – with the wheelie bins being delivered next week.

A spokesman for Swindon Borough Council said that the changes came following complaints from residents about vermin shredding the litter sacks.

He said: “We received a number of complaints from local residents and councillors in this area about the vulnerability of refuse sacks to vermin. As a result, we have replaced the blue bag collections with wheeled bins.

“This brings these streets into line with the majority of collections in the borough which use bins.

“We recognise that some residents may not be able to accommodate a new bin and we will consider alternative arrangements following a home visit by an assessor.

“The council also offers an assisted collection service for refuse and recycling. This is available to people who are physically unable to transport their wheeled bins or recycling boxes to the front of their property and who do not have an able person living in the same home who can assist them.”

The Elborough Road changes come a week after plans were announced to move residents in Old Town’s Goddard Avenue and The Mall from blue bags to bins.

The proposals received a largely positive reaction.

Sophie Arnault, 38, of Goddard Avenue, said: “Right now we store the blue bags in another bin out the back. Then we have to carry them out to the front on bin day.”