Landlords are being asked to provide their tenants with somewhere to put their rubbish to help keep the streets of Brighton and Hove tidy.

Many tenants are forced to dump black bags full of rubbish outside their flats throughout the week because there is nowhere else to put them.

The bags are sometimes ripped open, leaving a trail of unsightly waste along city pavements.

Part of the problem stems from the ageing Victorian and Regency buildings themselves, which were not originally designed for several different households.

But Brighton and Hove City Council believes landlords could do more to provide communal areas for their tenants' domestic waste.

Landlords renting private accommodation in the city are being invited to a meeting at Brighton Town Hall on Tuesday at 2pm during which waste collection from flats and bedsits will feature high on the agenda.

Matt Easteal, senior environmental enforcement officer, said: "In the absence of having anywhere to put their waste, tenants are putting bags out in the street every day of the week, where seagulls rip them up. We want to keep the streets free of black bags."

Mr Easteal said he had seen some properties of 12 bedsits where there was nowhere at all to store waste.

But many places had disused cellars which might make an ideal place for waste if they were cleared out.

He said: "In a lot of circumstances you can find places in the properties and, if people recycle, they can store a lot of waste in their kitchens."

The council is also trying out communal bins in parts of the city.

The skips, which are emptied six times a week, are being trialled in 24 streets over a 12-month period.

A recent survey of people living in the trial areas showed 93 per cent of respondents found the containers quite or very easy to use, while 89 per cent said they thought the streets near their homes had been cleaner since the start of the trial.

Almost 80 per cent found the impact of the bins on the street scene acceptable.