NEIGHBOURS are furious at plans to change their rubbish collection system -- after a dust cart crashed into a wall behind their homes.

The whole row of residents in James Street, Little Lever, say they now have to carry rubbish-filled wheelie bins through their homes to be put out for collection at the front.

Council chiefs have written to around 30 neighbours, saying they can no longer collect their bins from an unadopted path behind their street after the dust cart crashed because it is too dangerous.

Angry mum Jeanette Hughes, 39, said: "It's crazy and affecting the whole street. I am dragging my bin through the house in the morning. If people do not put their bins out around the front of the street they will not be emptied.

"We cannot keep our bins around the front because they will be a danger for cars and schoolchildren will push them over."

Paul Burton, 46, said: "It's ludicrous. A few of us tried to phone the council and we have got conflicting views."

And Jean Rigby said: "The lady next door to me is nearly 90 and there is no way she can take the bins to the front. We also have a lot of trouble with yobs and if there is any damage we would have to pay for it."

Veronica Mayoh, 52, said: "My husband Stanley has had a five-way heart bypass so how he is supposed to drag a bin around I do not know. It is just not feasible."

In a letter to residents, the council said the state of the back street had deteriorated to an extent where it presented a hazard to the safety of refuse collection operatives. It went on: "Whereas we would like to provide a convenient refuse collection service to the residents of James Street I regret that until it is made safe, the collection point for your wheeled refuse container will be at the front of the property."

A Bolton Council spokesman said: "Our health and safety department said it was unsafe for the refuse vehicles to continue to use the back lane as it is not made up.

"The lane is not adopted and the maintenance is the responsibility of the householders. It is only a dirt track with a grass surface and we cannot take the chance of the vehicles sliding." There has already been one instance when one of the vehicles got stuck in the lane.

"The houses are in two blocks and there is a central ginnel so to try and help we have let people know they can leave their bins at the end or the middle of the street and they will be emptied from there."