After meeting residents in Hove, Labour’s shadow justice secretary Steve Reed criticised the Green-led council’s record on recycling and the state of the city.

He said people are frustrated by continuing issues with rubbish collection and items such as fridges and furniture being dumped on their estates.

Mr Reed said: “Residents are furious about the state of the streets - they said a dirty weekend in Brighton now has a completely different meaning to the jokey one it used to have.

“The streets are filthy and there’s rubbish dumped everywhere - it’s hard to believe that you have a Green council here.

“If there’s one thing you think the Greens might be good at, it’s green policies, but they are so incompetent they can’t even do that properly.

“People want change, people want their streets to look clean and they want their neighbourhoods they can be proud of.”

Rubbish was seen piling up near Hove Town Hall (Image: The Argus)

Labour is proposing to crack down on flytipping by giving councils new powers to force flytippers to remove litter.

The plans would see funding given to create so-called “clean-up squads” made up of offenders to remove rubbish they have dumped through fixed penalty cleaning notices.

Labour has also pledged to restore neighbourhood police teams by putting an extra 13,000 police officers on the streets and prosecuting people dumping rubbish.

“Those who have made the mess should clean up the mess,” Mr Reed said.

“It acts as a punishment to them and a deterrent to other people who think it is acceptable to just dump rubbish on the streets, which is making people’s local areas feel uncared for.”

Mr Reed also accused the Conservatives of “defunding the police” by taking 21,000 officers off the beat and said that only Labour could be trusted to tackle antisocial behaviour.

He said: “This is a government that has waved the white flag to criminals and antisocial offenders. We need a government that will get the streets back under the control of the law-abiding majority.”

Steve Reed and Labour councillor Bella Sankey spoke to residents in Hove (Image: The Argus)

Mr Reed was visiting the city as campaigning heats up ahead of the local elections in Brighton and Hove and across the country.

He said the city’s Labour councillors are “determined” to clean the city up and restore pride in local communities.

“If people really care about having a Brighton to be proud of, they should vote Labour on May 4,” Mr Reed said.

His visit comes after the Green Party announced its vision for the city should it retain control of the council, including plans to cut general waste collections from weekly to fortnightly and introduce a food waste collection service.

More than 200 people are standing as candidates in the upcoming election across the city.

The deadline for registering to vote in the election is April 17 and applications can be completed online at gov.uk/register-to-vote.