Angry residents have been waiting five weeks for their rubbish to be taken away by under-fire refuse collectors service in Brighton and Hove.

They say Western Terrace, behind the old Debenhams building in Brighton, has been forgotten by the refuse contractors Sita.

Siobhan Rollinson said residents were at their "wits' end" at the lack of collection despite repeated calls to the Sita hotline, which have been met with promises of collection.

The news follows increasing concern among householders over the amount of waste on the streets in recent weeks.

She said: "My neighbour and I have lost count of the number of calls to Sita, but to no avail.

"We have also contacted the council in the hope that there is someone who is monitoring Sita's performance and acting as a point of contact for people like ourselves.

"The council finally responded by sending a member of staff to look at the problem - yet there has still been no collection.

"One of the reasons given is that the rubbish collection vehicle cannot access the street because of the scaffolding around Debenhams.

"What rubbish. The scaffolding is not in the road, nor overhanging it in the slightest.

"Also, both the rubbish men themselves and contacts at the Sita office have said that a smaller vehicle will be sent instead - and still we wait.

"The shed where the rubbish is housed is not that far from the main road either, so why could the collectors not physically carry the bags from the shed to the main road?

"We are now at our wits' end, the rubbish is stinking and it can't be long before vermin are attracted.

"Sita are not providing a service, nor are Brighton & Hove Council overseeing them - yet still we pay our council tax."

Councillors from all parties claim Sita has failed to provide an efficient service for the £6.7 million yearly contract it signed with Brighton and Hove Council to collect rubbish from 126,000 properties and to clean up the town.

The recent chaos in the service was caused by a change in collection days and new teams who do not know the area being assigned to different parts of the borough.

High Wycombe-based Sita said the new service will be efficient once things have settled down and they will get round to collecting all rubbish in the town.

The service has been defended by council leader Lynette Gwyn-Jones, who says Sita is "generally pleased" by the performance of their workforce in "rising to the challenge" of the new service.

Ms Jones said: "We are attempting to bring residents a much-improved collection service on an area basis with street sweeping crews following behind rather than the previous ad hoc rounds inherited since the merger of Brighton and Hove"

She said Sita disposed of 1,288 tonnes of rubbish during the first week of the changeover in the middle of July, but this was more than 200 metric tonnes down on the same week last year.

Opposition leader of the council Geoffrey Theobald said he was concerned about the lack of accountability from the service. "We would previously get a report from the council officer responsible if something went wrong with the service. Under this Labour administration we get nothing and they even cancel meetings."