A waste collection firm that serves 53,000 households in south Oxfordshire has been sacked by the council after accusations that it failed to collect rubbish on time.

South Oxfordshire District Council yesterday sacked SITA and announced that S Grundon (Services) Ltd, a family-run company based at Ewelme, near Wallingford, was to take over.

The move follows ten months of wrangling in which the council claimed SITA had breached its £1.7m-a-year waste management contract.

Both sides have called in their lawyers.

Gina Coupar, the council's head of public amenities, said: "On occasions, whole rounds were left uncollected. SITA employed lots of agency workers and had difficulty finding staff, particularly at the beginning and end of the week.

"Monday collections were unreliable in Thame and Fridays were bad in Didcot. If dustbins weren't collected on a Friday, it often meant rubbish was left out all weekend."

The council also blames SITA for a five per cent drop in re-cycled waste. Only 12 per cent of the district's household waste is currently being re-cycled. The target for 2003-4 is 33 per cent.

Grundon will be paid £2.6m a year to take over the collection of waste - including, for the first time, plastics - from December 10.

It has also agreed to provide an interim collection service from November 12, but more problems are expected in those early weeks.

Shirley Brown, the council cabinet member with special responsibility for waste management, said: "We would like to thank people for their patience over the past few months. We hope they will bear with us during the transition period."

Senior SITA executives responded angrily to council allegations it had abandoned its contract.

Regional director Dave Foster said the council had been well aware of the company's difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff in an area of low unemployment.

He said: "As far as we were concerned we were still in discussions with the district council on how to withdraw from the contract amicably."

Grundon won the contract against competition from six other firms. SITA did not re-bid.