Oxford City Council is to embark on an urgent tree-felling exercise after tests showed 50 need to be cut down within a month.

Private company Bartlett Tree Care has been given a contract to survey 32,000 trees across the city over the next three years and create a database of those that need remedial work.

However, the firm has already identified that 50 are so dangerous they need felling within a month.

Last year 11 willow trees in Osney Island were cut down by Town Hall tree experts after fears they were diseased and could fall.

And in 2002 a diseased horse chestnut in Gloucester Street, Oxford, crashed on to a parked car in which 22-year-old Angela Regoczy was sitting during a violent storm.

The student, of Blandford Avenue, Oxford, was killed instantly.

City councillor Caroline van Zyl, executive member for sustainable environment, said: "We have insisted all the tree management work is carried out sensitively and safely, favouring remedial work, with felling being the very last option.

"It is absolutely critical that we do all we can to ensure that safety comes first."