A mother and her asthmatic nine-year-old daughter are facing what could be Britain's toughest school run, having to trudge three miles along a muddy footpath after their petrol subsidy was removed.

Julie Hewitt says she was entitled to a subsidy for her petrol money to drive daughter Connie to school because they live more than three miles away.

But a cost-cutting council has insisted there is a shorter cross-country route measuring 2.7 miles that the child can walk.

Ms Hewitt, 39, appealed against the refusal by filming the mud-clogged 'short cut' which runs past a dairy farm and along overgrown lanes.