A VILLAGE was left with rubbish on its streets for 25 hours this week after a mix up involving Darlington Borough Council's revised refuse collection service.

Residents in Middleton One Row put their household rubbish out for collection by 7.30am, as requested, on Tuesday.

But a council leaflet sent to all households in the village failed to point out that the collection day had been moved to Friday.

The waste was finally removed at 8.30am on Wednesday.

Ward councillor Doris Jones said she was dismayed to discover that collections for Middleton St George would still be on a Tuesday, but Middleton One Row, which is just yards away, would now have collections on a Friday.

She said: "It's madness; the wagon used to deal with both villages quite adequately on the same day, but now it is being split over two days.

"With all the new houses that have been built in Darlington over the last few years, we are getting fewer resources rather than more.

"What we need is more people on the streets collecting rubbish, not someone sat behind a desk telling people to do it themselves."

A council spokeswoman said on Wednesday: "We would like to apologise to those residents in Middleton One Row who were affected.

"As soon as the problem was realised we did everything we could to collect the rubbish as quickly as possible."

She added that those households that had been given wrong information would be receiving letters in the next few days confirming the correct collection day and details.

The council introduced its new streamlined system on Monday after a best value review decided it needed to cut costs by £200,000.

The result was to scrap the team of binmen who brought out bins and rubbish bags from homes and have residents carry it out to collection points themselves.

At a meeting of the council's public protection and community partnerships scrutiny committee in Tuesday, Terry Collins, assistant director of environmental services, faced a barrage of questions from councillors on how the revised service was going to work.

Coun Jones was particularly concerned that some elderly residents in Middleton One Row were now being asked to carry their rubbish to the Devonport Hotel.

She added: "This system is not what the people of Darlington want and it is not going to work."

Mr Collins said 223 residents had so far been offered assisted collections and 330 application forms had been sent out.

He said: "This is only the second day of the new service and we realise we will have problems at first, but we are prepared to get out there and sort them out and I am sure it will bed in eventually."

Coun Pat Buttle and Coun Jones said they were surprised to learn that the cost-cutting exercise meant jobs would be lost within the refuse collection team.

When pressed by Coun Pat Buttle to reveal how many jobs were affected, Mr Collins said three posts had to go.

Two jobs were still under threat, but negotiations were taking place for possible early retirements and the council was looking to re-deploy those who faced losing their jobs.

Coun Stephen Harker criticised Coun Bill Stenson for comments he made recently in the Press regarding people being asked to put their rubbish out by 7.30 on collection days.

He said: You have misled a lot of people in Darlington and probably worried a lot of elderly people.

"The leaflet sent out to residents actually says for people to put their rubbish out initially for 7.30, then when they find out their regular time they can put it out as near that time as possible.