Street wardens hope to have ended the problem of stolen shopping trolleys being dumped around two Oxford estates.

They have persuaded supermarket bosses to pick up their trolleys, which are routinely stolen and ditched.

The issue has plagued Blackbird Leys and Rose Hill over the past few months.

In April, wardens found 31 trolleys had been dumped on the streets.

The matter was raised by residents at meetings of Oxford City Council's south east area committee.

Street wardens manager John Holmes said some supermarkets had been more helpful in tackling the problem than others.

The Tesco supermarket at the Oxford Retail Park, was highlighted as a store where difficulties had arisen.

At the March south east area committee meeting, Mr Holmes said the council could consider collecting the trolleys and crushing them before returning them to Tesco.

But following a meeting with Mr Holmes, Tesco staff have agreed to step up their efforts to collect trolleys.

Fortnightly collections by Tesco staff are now in place.

This month, only two dumped trolleys have been reported by the wardens.

Wardens also reported that the Sainsbury's store in Heyford Hill had been recovering its trolleys promptly.

A Tesco spokesman said the store had installed a security system last year to tackle the problem. The system uses a magnetic field to block trolley wheels when they go beyond the supermarket boundary.

The spokesman said: "We do take issues affecting the local community seriously."