The British Transport Police (BTP) has said that it will not investigate bicycle thefts from railway stations where the bicycle has been left for more than two hours. It means most bike thefts will not be investigated and CCTV footage will not be looked at outside a two-hour timeframe, according to the BBC.

Commuters leave thousands of cycles on racks outside stations every day, including in specially built bike parks with CCTV. Critics say the BTP policy means those facilities are not secure and theft has effectively been decriminalised.

The BTP said: “The more time our officers spend reviewing CCTV… the less time they have available for patrolling railway stations and trains, investigating crimes which cause the most harm.”

Simon Feldman has had one bike taken already from outside Watford Junction station and an attempt was made recently to steal another.

He informed the BTP, which told him officers would not investigate the theft – which happened while he was on shift in London – as he had left the bike at the station for 10 hours.

“The BTP report came back after I reported it and it said they wouldn’t investigate it. Even though it’s right under a camera. And I found out that if you have left your bike for more than two hours, they won’t investigate it,” he said.

“I was pretty shocked because what it’s doing effectively is decriminalising bike theft and I realised how many people are being affected by this.”

Mr Feldman said most secure parking was next to useless.

“Lots of people across the country cycle to a station every day and their possessions aren’t being looked after. They’re not safe. Hundreds of thousands of pounds are being thrown into secure bike parking and it isn’t secure,” he said.

“These cameras, you could put a bag over them and that would be exactly the same purpose they serve. The footage is never watched, the footage isn’t monitored so the cameras don’t do anything, so the thieves are so confident now they just take the bikes in broad daylight.

“The answer is a tough one. British Transport Police should look into these crimes but there are so few of them these days, maybe it’s time British Transport Police said ‘we can’t do these any more’ and hand it over to the local police.”

In a list of crimes the BTP will not investigate, it also said thefts on trains should only be reported if the passenger knows the exact carriage.

Any bikes stolen worth less than £200 will not be investigated, neither will car thefts if the vehicle has been left for more than two hours.