INVESTIGATORS are searching for surviving family members of Thomas Yuill, an 82-year-old who was discovered in Blackbird Leys, Oxford, last week months after his death.

Following a series of door-knocks at Mr Yuill's flat in Sorrel Road as he had last paid rent in October, Oxford City Council officers made the tragic find last Thursday.

Now geneaologists firm Finders International has been enlisted to see if he has any living relatives, as the council's last recorded next of kin passed away in 2012.

City council spokesman Chofamba Sithole explained that under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, the local authority was obliged to bury or cremate the remains of someone who died in one of its properties if no next of kin could be found.

Councillor Mike Rowley, board member for housing, said the council had a "duty" to inform them if found. Mr Yuill lived alone and reportedly had few visitors.

He added: "The saddest thing about it was that Mr Yuill apparently didn't know anyone, or at least not anyone near enough to help him.

"That's absolutely tragic and the council is beginning a program of checking on our isolated elderly residents.

"It's a big project because we estimate there are about 700 – or one in 11 of our tenants. Most, of course. will be perfectly happy and capable of managing by themselves, but there is assistance we and our partners can offer for those who are having trouble. I'm working with the council's Older People's Champion, Councillor Gill Sanders, on this."

He added that contacting other elderly tenants was all the more urgent due to the loss of the Greensquare housing association's mobile warden service, which used to regularly check on people but has now ended because of funding cuts.