A woman has declared her road a health hazard after rubbish was left to rot outside her home.

Susan Beglan, of Carden Avenue, Brighton, is one of hundreds of residents in the city who has fallen victim to changes in rubbish collection.

Mrs Beglan, 58, said at least 100 houses in the street had not had their rubbish collected for almost two weeks.

Bags were piling up in front gardens and on the pavement as the Bank Holiday looked set to delay collections even longer.

Mrs Beglan said: "They are supposed to collect the rubbish on Thursday. I've rung the council nearly every day and asked when the bags will be collected, and every day I'm told it will be the next day."

Rubbish on the north side of Carden Avenue used to be collected on Mondays and rubbish on the south side on Thursdays.

When the system for the city was changed, collections for the street switched to Thursdays.

Mrs Beglan said: "Before the change to the collections the system worked perfectly.

"But at the moment the whole road stinks because bags have split open.

"After such warm weather most of the bags are alive with bluebottles and maggots.

"It really has gone beyond a joke, there are young children in the street. It's a real health hazard."

A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: "We would like to apologise to people who haven't had their rubbish collected when they expected and we thank them for their patience.

"The refuse collectors are working very hard across the city in dealing with any bins which have been missed and are trying to get to them as soon as possible."

She added most rubbish had been collected but as with any major re-organisation there would be teething problems.

Steve White, general manager of Cityclean, which is responsible for the collections, acknowledged that there were problems with the collection service and offered sincere apologies to affected residents.

He added: "Change is never easy, but we are determined to provide a quality service for residents."