MORE than 200 stray shopping trolleys were rounded up during a three-day campaign in Southampton.

The city council set up a team called the Trolley Posse and a hotline phone number for the public to let officers know where the supermarket proper-ty was abandoned.

Among the 210 items, they found:

Nine trolleys from various outlets hidden in an overgrown front garden in Shirley.

One trolley disman-tled and turned into a bar-becue in Merry Oak.

A trolley wheeled all the way from Totton to Southampton - believed to have been the result of a drunken prank.

The city's grounds, cleansing and waste manager, Jon Dyer-Slade, said the clampdown had been a huge success, adding: "We are very pleased to have removed these eye-sores and we are now in the process of returning them to their owners. The vacant property in Shirley where we found nine trolleys as well as traffic cones and road signs was obviously a breeding-ground for them, and all the items were covered in ivy.

"We now want to meet the supermarket managers to make sure we can improve the situation in future." Mr Dyer-Slade added that the council would be prepared to repeat the campaign if trolleys went walkabout again.

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