A councillor stepped in to mend an 81-year-old woman's broken garden gate after officials told her it could take them up to three weeks to get round to mending it.
Coun Nigel Porter decided to grab his toolbox after Zelda Rubinstein complained about how long it would take Leicester City Council to sort the problem through official channels.
Zelda said council workmen came to fix the gate, which would not open, on September 15 but did not solve the problem.
The former teacher, who lives in a council bungalow in Montrose Road South, Aylestone, was then told it could be October 8 or 15 before they could return meaning her rubbish would not be able to be collected for weeks.
She said: "I called councillor Porter because I thought that was just too long. He agreed with me but I didn't expect him to come round and do it himself.
"It was very good of him. He didn't have to do it. It really should have been the council's responsibility but they were not very helpful.
"I have an assisted bin collection and the rubbish goes out of that gate so it needed.
"Also if there had been an emergency that meant I couldn't get out my front door I would have been stuck in the back garden."
The Liberal Democrat councillor for Aylestone said: "I just thought it was stupid that she would have to wait that long.
"She would have had to manhandle a six foot gate to get it open and an elderly lady shouldn't have to do that.
"It only took ten minutes to do. I just had to adjust the latch and plane a bit off.
"The council didn't do a proper job first time and wouldn't then sort it out promptly after that.
"It's ludicrous and not really good enough."
A city council spokesman said the repairs would have been completed within the five week target for non-urgent work.
He said: "We were asked to repair the gate on September 3 and carried out the work on September 15. However, 10 days later Miss Rubinstein rang to say the gate wasn't working once again, so we arranged to revisit and repair it once more.
"We understand it has been an inconvenience for Miss Rubinstein, but the work is not an emergency, and so we are well within the target time we set for non-urgent repairs, which is five weeks."
