Oxford's 'recycling revolution' has been rubbished by some city residents who claim they never asked for wheelie bins in the first place.

Councillors in the south and west of the city have been bombarded with complaints from people angry the two-wheeled bins had been left outside their homes, in some cases blocking pavements.

Lake Street resident Dana Macmillan claimed she had been allocated a wheelie bin despite telling the council she did not want one.

She said: "The street is really narrow and we already have problems with cars parking on the pavement.

"Where will people put these bins?

"They said if it was not appropriate for your house you could have lilac bags instead.

"I sent off the card for it and they completely ignored me and I got a wheelie bin anyway."

Last week the Oxford Mail reported that a special council helpline received more than 3,500 calls in the first week of the introduction of the wheelie bin scheme.

The 240-litre wheelie bins or sacks were delivered to 15,000 homes across the city, with the council planning to roll them out to all households by spring next year.

In all, more than 50,000 bins are expected to be provided.

Already, there have been more than 2,000 requests to switch to smaller 180-litre or 140-litre bins.

To handle calls, the council has doubled the number of staff handling inquiries in the City Works department to eight.

Labour city councillor Oscar van Nooijen, whose group initiated the wheelie bin scheme, said: "Residents are annoyed they can't even get past the pavements - this is happening all over the city."

Liberal Democrat city councillor Jean Fooks, executive member for a cleaner city, said: "We have been contacting all these people as fast as we can to resolve the situation."

For more on this story, see Wednesday's Oxford Mail.