Council chiefs have told householders not to tell them if they haven’t had their bins emptied as rubbish continues to pile up on the streets.

With residents bombarding Brighton and Hove City Council’s call centre with complaints, the local authority has urged people to stop contacting it.

It said it knew which roads were affected and staff were working as fast as they could to clear the backlog.

Despite numerous reorganisations following cost-cutting measures, Cityclean staff are still not getting to grips with their rounds.

It means waste is once again mounting up in dozens of streets in Brighton and Hove with some residents complaining they have not had collections since before the festive break.

After calling up to complain for the seventh time about uncollected bins, Lynne Jackson, of Links Close, Portslade, said she had been told call centre staff were out clearing waste.

She added: “People can no longer drive down the road the waste is overflowing that much. I keep on being told we are on the priority list but nothing happens.

“I do not want to live here any more. it’s disgusting and humiliating.”

George Mower, of Hardwicke Road, Hove, said: “I’ve been out myself picking up waste in the street but I’ve nowhere to put it. I’m just getting fed up.

“We’re paying our council tax for a service that doesn’t exist.”

The backlog has been created after the council introduced new rounds in October. But unions have repeatedly warned the local authority that the changes, which saw a number of vehicles taken off the road to save money, have left workers with too much to do.

Union representatives have urged council managers to come up with a solution in the next two weeks – or warned it may have to take action.

Mark Turner, of the GMB, said: “It’s chaos out there.”

A council spokesman said: “We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the delays to refuse and recycling collections.

“There have been some problems with refuse vehicles breaking down, and the bad weather has also slowed us down.

“Extra crews were out over the weekend and we had four extra crews out yesterday collecting rubbish missed last week in Saltdean, Hangleton, Patcham, Mile Oak and Hanover.

“If your collection has been missed please leave your bins out and we will collect as soon as we can.

“We are confident that the refuse collection rounds will work well again once we have caught up from the festive period and the bad weather.”