Westminster Council has begun issuing £100 on-the-spot fines to Lime and Forest for e-bikes left blocking pavements or public spaces. The council says fines are more effective than impounding bikes and help to target hotspot areas such as Soho Square and Berkeley Square, says the Standard.
The Labour-run council believes issuing fixed penalty notices will be more effective in tackling the problem of dumped dockless e-bikes than having its staff seize and impound the battery-powered cycles.
It comes as London Councils, the organisation that represents all 33 of the capital’s boroughs, said that contracts between e-bike firms and councils were being “flouted”, leaving e-bikes strewn across pavements, including in areas where firms did not have permission to operate.
Earlier this week the Standard revealed how Kensington and Chelsea Council had seized 1,000 dockless e-bikes since the start of the year, many of them abandoned on pavements near Harrods in Knightsbridge. This has generated more than £81,000 for the council in “release fees”.
Max Sullivan, Westminster Council’s cabinet member for streets, has written to Lime chief executive Wayne Ting and Forest chief executive Agustin Guilisasti informing them that fines were being issued where bikes were found “blocking pavements, doorways or other public space” rather than in designated on-street parking bays.
(Picture: Alex Kravchenko)
