Moves to force residents to use wheelie bins are threatening to ignite a major revolt by Oxford city councillors.

A council vote against the city's controversial waste collection strategy of rolling out wheelie bins across the city looks likely to be ignored by the ruling Lib Dem group on Monday.

And Labour councillors are considering calling a vote of no confidence in Jean Fooks, the executive member for a cleaner city.

The executive is set to decide that the issue is "an operational" matter and not political. Thousands of wheelie bins will be delivered to homes across Oxford from Monday in the latest stage of Oxford's green revolution.

The first of 16,000 wheelie bins will be taken to doorsteps to replace black rubbish sacks in Cowley, Iffley, Iffley Fields, Blackbird Leys, Littlemore, Rose Hill, Greater Leys, Northfield Brook, St Mary's and Cowley Marsh.

At last month's meeting of the full council, councillors voted by 22 to 14 that "it should be Oxford residents who decide what is the most appropriate waste collection method for their property, not city council officers."

But officers will recommend that the city's executive board sticks to its guns and presses ahead with the wheelie bin plans on grounds of safety, cost and pract- icality.

Labour councillor Colin Cook said the Lib Dem group would ignore the full council's wishes at its peril.

He said: "I hope that the executive board will come to its senses and listen to the democratic view of the council. There are many residents unhappy about the scheme, who do not want wheelie bins imposed on them. I thought a vote of 22 to 14 was a clear majority."

Mr Cook said if the "will of the council is ignored" he would be raising the issue of a no confidence vote in Mrs Fooks at the next Labour group meeting.

Green group leader Craig Simmons said: "There are only so many decisions made against the will of the majority that the council will stand."

He said the Greens recognised the benefits of wheelie bins but there needed to be flexibility. "Wheelie bins are just not workable in some areas. Forcing people to use them will only build up resentment."

But Mrs Fooks said: "The city council is being much more flexible than most local authorities. We recognise that some people may not be able to cope. We will try to help them, perhaps by supplying smaller bins."

On the threat of a vote of no confidence, she said: "If they want a vote of no confidence let them do it. This was Labour's scheme in the first place. I just happen to be sitting in the hot seat."

Eric Murray, of Crow, the group campaigning for a return to weekly collections, said: "The council just goes on ignoring the residents. The Jericho streets are full of wheelie bins overflowing with waste. I don't know how people living there can stand it."