A councillor has branded some of his own constituents “pompous, conceited and manipulative” in a spat about overflowing bins in the city.

City councillor Dick Page got embroiled in a war of words on Twitter with the Hanover Bin Action Group over ongoing problems with the city’s waste collection services.

After the group sent him photos of bursting bins and rubbish in the street, he replied: “Try doing something useful instead of moaning!”

The Green Party councillor for Hanover and Elm Grove suggested the group join him on community clean-up efforts run by Hanover Rubbish Friends.

But the group, which originally formed to fight controversial plans for communal bins, defended its “sustained and effective” community efforts, adding: “We have a civic duty to keep helping”.

Cllr Page called the group’s tweet, “pompous, conceited and manipulative”.

He told the Argus: “They are irritating, they pick up other people’s complaints and bring it back to communal bins.

“I’ve tried to engage with them for more than three years now but until they get all communal bins removed from Brighton and Hove they won’t be happy.

“I do my best as a councillor for my residents, but they keep going on.

“City Clean is a problem and it’s much more complex than communal bins.”

The local activists describe themselves as “a group of voices, collectively tweeting against the proposed bins in Hanover” and have 6,751 followers on Twitter.

They said: “A recent tweet from a Green councillor suggested we should stop ‘moaning’ about this programme and that we should do something useful.

“In fact, our community group has met many times with councillors, MPs, the mayor, and the rest, and we find that our social media efforts are effective.”

They added: “We were pleased to see support from city residents against the criticism to us recently, with one resident even suggesting our group was given an award for our good work towards the city.”

Last week The Argus revealed that a shortage of drivers, bin lorries which overheat in the sun, and bad parking by residents had been to blame for a spate of missed refuse collections across the city.