A great grandmother with arthritis dragged her wheelie bin a mile through the city centre after rubbish collectors failed to empty it on time.

Fed-up Nan Miller, 85, pulled the heavy container from her home in Holter’s Mill to the doorstep of the Serco depot in Kingsmead Road in protest at the council contractor’s unreliable service.

She says she had repeatedly warned dustmen that if her garden waste was not picked up on the correct day one more time she would take matters into her own hands.

And she did just that after they failed to collect her rubbish again, forcing her to lug the full wheelie bin for half-an-hour up hills and across busy roads.

The retired translator, who has arthritis in her knees, told the Gazette: “I have warned them so many times but enough is enough.

“They are supposed to come to collect the garden waste every other week and I think there has only been two times in the last year where they have come on time.

“I leave it in the exact place they ask, yet they just do not come. I have to pull the bin along a gravel path and haul it up a large step.

“When they don’t arrive, I have to take it back down. I’m not exactly in the prime of my youth so it’s not good for me at all.”

Mrs Miller leaves the bin outside her front door on a Wednesday evening for a Thursday pick-up, but says time and time again it is not emptied.

After she arrived at the Serco depot she was promised her rubbish would be collected on time from now on.

The mother-of-three, who has lived in the city for three years after moving from Yorkshire, has made a formal complaint to Canterbury council.

She said: “They say they give a charity donation every time they miss a collection, so I wonder how many hundreds of pounds have been donated in my name over the last year.

“I think I have been patient enough and I don’t think anything would’ve improved if I hadn’t done this.”

City council spokesman Rob Davies said: “There has been some confusion over where Mrs Miller’s rubbish is collected from.

“After she visited the Serco depot, a member of the helpdesk team drove Mrs Miller home so he could personally visit the property and agree the best collection point from now on.

“This has been communicated to the crews and we hope the confusion has now been resolved.”