Residents in a Brighton street are furious after waiting almost three weeks for their rubbish to be taken away.

The black bags lining the road on Albion Hill were finally taken away yesterday, two days short of three weeks after the last collection.

Resident Anna Battersby said: "There was rubbish all down the street as far as the eye could see, right from the top of Albion Hill right to the very bottom.

"I have never known anything like it. I lived in London for 30 years and I was shocked."

The Brighton and Hove wide refuse collection chaos was sparked when contractor Sita changed collection days in an effort to make the service more efficient.

The company was getting up to 700 calls a days as rubbish went uncollected because of the new system and a special hotline number was almost constantly engaged.

In many areas the black bags were quickly attacked by foxes, seagulls, cats and dogs, leaving rubbish strewn across streets.

Ms Battersby, 36, said residents were dumbfounded on Monday when rubbish was removed from nearby Quebec Street but black bags in Albion Hill were untouched.

She said: "We just kept getting missed and everybody was upset about it. It was just rank, absolutely rank - we could not open our kitchen windows because of the smell."

Sita won the Brighton and Hove Council contract for refuse collection and street cleaning a year ago.

Councillors were told the Sita bid was not the cheapest but likely to be the most efficient when they backed the deal last August.

Refuse collection has since been dogged by problems, leading the council to report in June the service had fallen well below the level Sita or the authority wished.

The council said yesterday it was working to make sure every household had its rubbish collected on time.

A spokesman said nearly the same tonnage was being collected at the moment as the same week last year, adding: "We know there are problems with the changeover but we think in some cases they have been highly exaggerated."

Speaking as anger about missed collections mounted last week, Sita's communications manager Matt Taylor acknowledged there was a problem but said he was confident new system would settle down.

Asked to comment yesterday, Mr Taylor said: "I have got nothing further to add to the statement we issued last week."