Councillors said they are frustrated that recycling remained uncollected for four weeks.

Conservative councillor Alistair McNair, who represents Patcham and Hollingbury, told residents that he was taking up the issue of overflowing recycling bins at Stanmer Heights with officials.

Councillor McNair said that he had worked with his fellow Conservative ward councillors Anne Meadows and Carol Theobald to improve the rubbish and recycling collections at Stanmer Heights and had seen improvements for refuse.

He said: “It has been very disappointing to find out recycling has been missed for four weeks.

“We keep in touch with residents at Stanmer Heights to monitor the situation and visit regularly.

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“We have visited Stanmer Heights to see the current situation and reported it to management at Cityclean as soon as we knew.

“The recycling bins are overflowing, which leads to huge amounts of litter.

“We have not so far had any response from the council as to why it has not been collected for the last four weeks.

“This year, recycling and rubbish collections have been very sporadic in parts of Patcham and Hollingbury.

“Mackie Avenue and Rotherfield Crescent, to name just two streets, had missed collections for more than two weeks, but many more streets have had missed collections.

“We have been given different reasons, for example, a shortage of lorries.

“With a new Labour administration promising to fix the basics, we do hope that improving rubbish and recycling is their number one priority and residents notice a difference very soon.”

The council said: “We’re very sorry about the recent problems with recycling collections at Bramble Way, Stanmer Heights.

“Our crews have been having difficulties pulling the big recycling bins out and then manoeuvring them. So we need to put handles on these bins.

“We will be getting this done as soon as possible so that regular weekly collections can be re-established.

“In the meantime, we have arranged for a collection to happen over the weekend.”