The bin strike which threatens to bring Brighton and Hove to its knees will definitely start on Monday.

Union bosses yesterday said Brighton and Hove City Council had so far failed to come to up with an eleventh hour deal to prevent the planned week-long walkout.

Mountains of rubbish are already beginning to pile up across the city after two days of work-to-rule industrial action.

No refuse will be picked up from any of the city's 120,000 households during the week-long strike.

It is feared industrial action will stretch into Christmas with union bosses already planning further walkouts from November 16 to 22.

GMB branch secretary Mark Turner said the council had “done nothing” to prevent the strike.

He said: “We have been forced into this position. They have not done anything to prevent the strike. If they wanted to prevent the strike they could have come to us on Thursday or this time last week. We could have had a deal on the table by now. They have not done anything. Nothing has changed.”

Last night Mr Turner said that even if the council offered them a deal over the weekend it would be too late to stop the walkout.

He said: “We will not be able to call off the strike, the strike is on.

“If a deal was struck over the weekend we would not be in a position to call it off."

The GMB said the walkout will start from 6am on Monday at Upper Hollingdean Road, Brighton.

The 300 CityClean binmen, street cleaners and mechanics are striking over proposed pay cuts of up to £8,000 per person.

The council has proposed the cuts to bring their pay in line with other unskilled workers in different departments.

A spokesman for the council said: “We have had several weeks of talks to try to come to an agreement about how the council will implement legal and moral duties to pay people fairly across the board.

“The council has comprehensive plans to manage disruption to core services. However, we remain hopeful that we can resume productive discussions with the unions about how we implement fair pay across the council so that the strikes planned for next week can be averted.

“We’d remind residents that this issue is about how the council fulfils its legal and moral duty to pay it employees fairly without passing on unnecessary costs to the council tax payer.”

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