A desperate grandmother pushed her wheelie bin six-and-a-half miles so she could dispose of her garden waste now that doorstep collections have been suspended.

Jean Holder, 73, walked from her Seaton home to the recycling centre in Workington – and then back again. To make the trip even more challenging, it was on the hottest day of the year.

Allerdale council was forced to stop collecting some recycling and garden waste following changes to the service by contractor FCC Environment. However county council chiefs are urging people to take the garden waste in bags in their own vehicles to the recycling centres.

Mrs Holder said: “I’ve got a big garden and the bin was nearly full. I thought: it’s a nice day, I don’t have any babysitting duties. I didn’t have anything else on.”

During her journey she was helped by Craig Mitchell, 44, from Harrington. Mr Mitchell said: “I saw a lady on Navvies Bridge and I thought she was doing some sort of protest by taking her garden waste to Allerdale House. When she said she was going to the tip I said ‘do you realise how far you’ve got left to go?’”

“With it being the hottest day of the year I wanted to keep an eye on her to make sure she was OK. I’d like to think someone would stop to help my mam or gran.”

When she reached the Solway Road gates she was given help to empty the contents. Jean declined the offer of a lift back to Seaton with her bin from Craig. Her overall journey was around three hours.

She said she would like to see the recycling collection get back to its normal service now. “It was Allerdale that told us to recycle,” she added. “Why, when it was going well, are they doing this with the collections?”

An Allerdale council spokesman apologised for the temporary suspension of garden waste collections and said that if people can not get to the centres they should leave garden waste in their bins until the next collection or purchase a compost bin from Cumbria County Council. The spokesman added: “We are working with FCC Environment, which collects the waste on our behalf, on solutions to these issues and hope to restore all collections as soon as possible.”