Asda is under fire after telling customers who live in flats they may have to pick up their door to door deliveries.

from the foot of their stairs.

Under a trial, residents on the first floor and above are losing their direct to the door service in large areas of Edinburgh covered by the supermarket's Leith superstore in Newhaven.

Bulk orders delivered to those affected will now be left in the communal area of halls for collection.

Asda said the decision was taken on the back of concerns for the safety of colleagues carrying weighty shopping and would only effect "heavy and bulky orders".

It insisted drivers would treat each delivery on a case by case basis.

Sue Miller, chief executive of LifeCare, which works with older people, said: "It's a serious issue, and I'm sure many older people are going to be very worried if that's all they have to rely on.

"Older people need that kind of service - they just cannot carry bags of shopping up the stairs.

"If Asda are approaching this on a case-by-case basis, how is it going to be assessed - will it be by phone? Who is doing the assessing, and how are they deciding?

"There are a lot of older people living in tenements still, and there's no communal areas in tenements that I can think of."

"If they leave it at the bottom of the stairs, there's the chance that people will nick it."

Ms Miller said it was unfair, adding that if the supermarket was claiming to deliver door-to-door,

"It's no longer door-to-door, it's door-to-stairwell." Home delivery costs up to £6, depending on the time of day.

The supermarket said the new trial would not affect properties with lift access.

An Asda spokesman said: "During this trial, on rare occasions where there is no lift access to a property above a first floor, like other retailers, we will deliver heavy and bulky orders to a property's communal area, and will continue to deliver to a customer's door should they need extra support due to disability."