ILLEGAL vehicles on Oxford's roads are being targeted in a joint crackdown by the city council and police.

The Town Hall has jointly bought a £5,000 mobile automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) scanner to identify untaxed and unregistered cars - and those identified as being a nuisance.

The scanners automatically bring up the registered owner's details, information previously only obtained by officers actually stopping vehicles.

City councillor Caroline van Zyl, executive member for a safer city, said: "By joining forces with the police we have doubled the resource for tackling people who think it is fair not to pay their vehicle tax and not to register their vehicle.

"This new scanner means that we can immediately identify untaxed cars and other nuisance vehicles by scanning their number plate.

"This will make more efficient use of the enforcement officers time and helps reduce the number of residents calling to report abandoned vehicles."

The scanner was bought by Oxford Safer Communities Partnership, which includes the city council and the police.

Project manager Det Insp Gary Grant said: "In the time when Thames Valley has been using it the technology has proved itself invaluable.

"It has taken the guesswork out of identifying which cars are on the road legally and which are not. We know that untaxed cars are more likely to be in an unroadworthy condition and be used by criminals so targeting those cars can only make Oxford an even safer place."

In the past two years, there has been a seven per cent reduction in the number of calls received by the city council in respect of "nuisance vehicles" from 1,801 in 2004-05 to 1,682 in 2005-06. It is expected the number this year will reduce to 1,361.

Last year, (2005/06), the council removed 744 abandoned vehicles from the streets compared to 1,095 the previous year - a 32 per cent reduction.

Officers also responded to fewer reports of abandoned and nuisance vehicles from concerned members of the public last year. In 2005, 1,992 were inspected compared to 1,681 in 2006.

On the first day the scanner was used earlier this month, three vehicles were picked up for not having valid tax. They were clamped and impounded.