OXFORD has now got its seventh twin city after an agreement was formally signed by the city's Lord Mayor in Padua, Italy.

Oxford City Council said it was keen to link up with more European cities ahead of Brexit.

Last year, it formalised a link with another university city, Wroclaw, in Poland.

Lord Mayor Colin Cook visited the northern Italy city at the weekend, signing official documents with Padua's Mayor Sergio Giordani and meeting the first officer of the city's police, Gianfranco Martorano.

Musicians from Oxford's DIY Theatre group performed at the ceremony on Monday.

The first cultural link-up will take place on Friday, with the group's musicians performing West Side Story in Padua.

Wroclaw and Padua are Oxford's sixth and seventh twin cities but it has had some since the 1940s.

It first twinned up with Leiden, in the Netherlands, and Bonn, in Germany, in years following the end of the Second World War.

It also has formal links with Leon, the second largest city in Nicaragua, Grenoble, in southern France, and Russian city, Perm.

City councillors have also agreed for Oxford to twin up with Ramallah, in the West Bank, but formal documents are still yet to be signed.