Workers felling the willow trees on Osney Island were set to be told today to lay down their tools after campaigners won a 14-day injunction.

The Oxford City Council workers have already axed all but four of 11 condemned trees and have topped another one ready for felling today.

Now, thanks to the 14-day injunction taken out on behalf of the Osney Island Residents' Association, they are likely to be forced to down tools.

As reported in yesterday's Oxford Mail, the council stirred up angry protests from islanders when it condemned eleven of 17 trees alongside the Thames at East Street to be felled as unsafe.

An independent expert employed by the islanders has reported that all but four of the trees earmarked for the axe are "highly retainable".

She agreed that the other four needed felling.

Former city council landscape architect John Thompson, who now runs the organisation Forest of Oxford to promote urban trees, also waded into the increasingly bitter row.

He was worried that other riverside willows throughout Oxford might now be in danger.

He said: "Pollarding is an old Oxfordshire art.

"And pollarding is all these trees needed.

"Autumn will be bleaker for the islanders without the lovely contorted, twisted shapes of these cracked willows."

He added: "If the trees are kept low, and branches correctly pollarded, they pose no danger to anyone and it simply doesn't matter if they rot inside.

"In fact the hollow trees provide a wonderful habitat for wildlife.

"The cracked willow is an iconic tree of the Oxford landscape."

Osney resident Anabelle Dunston said: "The residents have clubbed together and paid out £2,000 to obtain this injunction.

"And we paid out another £700 to obtain the professional report from aborologist Sharon Cosgrove."

She added: "We appreciate the need for making sure trees are safe, particularly since the tragic death of a girl when a tree fell on her car. But these willows are a completely different case.

Alan Armitage, city council executive member for a healthier environment, said: "I feel I have to act in accordance with the report from our tree officer - which says the trees are dangerous.

"What sort of a defence would it be in court if someone were killed and injured and we admitted that we had not acted on the advice of our own officer?"

Replacement trees are expected to be planted in the new year.