A disabled pensioner says her muscles are wasting away while waiting for Kensington and Chelsea Council to help safeguard her tricycle from thieves.

Polio, cancer and heart operation survivor Verite Reily Collins, 64, of Ifield Road, Chelsea, relied on a £1,000 tricycle to get about until it was stolen by thieves in March.

It was the third bike stolen from her this year and the 11th nabbed in the last 13 years and since the crime, she has been unable to ride the streets of Chelsea for fear of another three-wheeler being taken.

Redcliffe Safer Neighbourhood Team's Sgt Sam Tembo recommended she locked her tricycle to a 'motorbike anchor' - but Kensington and Chelsea Council denied her permission to install the ring saying people would trip over it.

The council instead offered to fit a rack for six bicycles in a parking bay. But the rack proposal must go before the leader of the council and a public consultation before it is fitted, a process that could take months.

Ms Reily Colins said: "It's important to get a way of keeping it safe as soon as possible because some days I can't walk more a few hundred yards and feel like a prisoner in my own home. Now my doctor says my muscles are wasting away. I really need help to get around and I'm not very happy."

The enterprising pensioner has also asked for help from the nearby Fawcett Street Residents' Association and a nearby garage - all to no avail.

A Kensington and Chelsea Council spokesman said: "These things take time. There is a due process, and we follow that, but we are working as hard as we can to solve the problem."