HUNDREDS of shopping trolleys are being dumped in city streets, blighting the landscape, an investigation has shown.

In the space of just an hour and a half, a drive around East Oxford found 11 shopping trollies dumped on pavements and in gardens.

Eight of the trollies came from the Tesco Metro in Cowley Road (the remainder from Tesco in Cowley) and in a bid to stop trolleys being taken the store is hoping to get 'super' trolleys within the next few months.

The new ones will be fitted with an electronic device which makes the wheels lock if they are moved more than a few metres away from the supermarket.

New Government legislation, which came into effect on April 6, aimed to put pressure on supermarkets to put in place measures to stop trolleys being taken.

Included in the new legislation is a clause which allows councils to charge up to £200 for every shopping trolley it picks up on the street and returns to supermarkets.

Teams from the Oxford City Council works department go around collecting trolleys on a weekly basis, but Churchill Ward city councillor Joe McManners believes the council may be missing a trick.

He said: "Shopping trolleys are an eyesore and the new Government legislation allows the council to charge up to £200 a trolley. Supermarkets need to look after them to stop them being stolen but the council can put more pressure on these companies and at the same time make some money. It is not fair for the taxpayer to pay to pick trolleys up when it is the fault of the supermarkets and the people stealing them.

"When there is a way to get it sorted it should not be us that is paying the council to pick the trolleys up when they have have got better things to do."

A spokesman for Oxford City Council said: "As part of our street cleaning we do pick up abandoned trolleys every day and we are working with the supermarkets to reduce abandoned ones across the city."

Sarah Stark, 22, who was visiting the city from Surrey, said she had noticed several shopping trolleys in gardens.

She said: "I think it is quite shocking and as a visitor to Oxford it is not a good impression of the city. It seems to be much worse here than in my home town."

Two shopping trolleys were found outside the front door of Safila Khadam, who runs the community store on the corner of Cowley Road and Howard Road.

She said: "When the students are here at the beginning of September and at the end of the University year it is very bad. We do get a lot of trolleys dumped here from time to time and it is annoying."

Cowley Road Tesco Metro duty manager Chris Rogers said it contracts a company to collect trolleys and between six and 22 are returned daily to the store.

On the day students returned to Oxford Brookes University, two-thirds of the supermarket's total shopping trolleys were taken.

Mr Rogers said: "I was in the Didcot store a while ago and this is much worse. We do go out and collect trolleys and if a lot have gone missing then we will hire a van with our own staff in to drive around and find them.

"We lock them up at night, but unfortunately it is a very difficult thing for us to police."