PILES of rubbish remain on the streets almost a week after the bin strike was declared over.

The bin strike in Brighton and Hove officially ended after Brighton and Hove City Council and the GMB union agreed on a deal on Tuesday October 19.

The agreement included a pay rise that will benefit some of the lowest paid staff across the whole council, as well as the Cityclean service.

However, almost a week after the bin strike finished, rubbish remains piled high on the streets.

Photographs taken in Hove on Monday afternoon show rubbish piled up to head height on the streets.

The rubbish can also be seen overflowing onto the pavement and into the roads.

Last week, the council warned of a two-week backlog as binmen work to remove thousands of tonnes of rubbish from the city's streets.

While council staff are working "day and night" to remove the rubbish, the council warned it will take a minimum of two weeks to remove all of the waste left abandoned in the city.

With around 680 communal refuse bins, 1,500 communal recycling bins and 150 glass communal bins, plus more than 60 recycling points, the scale of the operation is "a massive one", it said.

Despite that, between Monday and Thursday, crews already picked up almost 500 tonnes more than they would normally collect.

An average daily collection totals 209 tonnes. However, last Monday they collected 265 tonnes; Tuesday 333 tonnes; Wednesday 314 tonnes and Thursday 391 tonnes.

That is 1,303 tonnes compared to the average 836 tonnes normally collected.

A council spokesman said: "All our crews are out daily to remove the piles of waste that accumulated during the strike.

"But we’ll also have staff out from midnight on Friday to clear up as much as they can from hard to reach areas they can’t get to during the day.