• BADLY parked e-hire bikes have plagued our streets for some time.

Camden Council’s policy is very clear that pedestrians are our number one priority. The “hierarchy” of who our transport and public realm activities favour is made up of: people walking, people cycling, and people who use public transport.

To deal with this Camden is intending to crack down on bad parking by placing the bikes’ operation on a contractual footing. We will be acquiring the powers the government has long failed to give us.

Unlike hire e-scooters (which operate through a Transport for London contract and because the Department for Transport has permitted trials of them), councils have no formal powers over dockless e-bikes. No powers exist to “ban” e-bikes, they are permitted vehicles on England’s roads.

We initially wanted to adopt a Londonwide bylaw to give councils the powers to enforce against operators who allow bikes to be badly parked. Councillors voted to adopt these provisions. But unfortunately all 33 London local authorities needed to agree for the bylaw to come into effect, and some failed to take this forward.

The government has also indicated it would legislate to give local authorities powers. We had been expecting this to be part of the transport bill; however, it is not yet clear if these will be adopted, and in the meantime the problems persist. We need action.

Over the past few years, Lime agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding with Camden, in which they agreed to certain provisions, such as directing app users to park in our bays.

But as the MoU is not hugely powerful, bringing in a contract (as with TfL’s contract for
e-scooters) provides firm legal powers for the council to take action against dockless hire firms if they do not meet high minimum standards of parking compliance.

The new contract (with Human Forest and Lime) enables the council to more strongly control numbers of bikes in the borough, to ensure operators swiftly remove any that are blocking the pavement, and to ensure bikes are parked in bays. It means we can ensure that operators levy fines on people who do not park properly and place bans on persistent offenders.

Indeed, these are no longer to be “dockless” bikes, but “bay bikes”. With 100,000 trips starting in Camden each month, they are an important part of enabling people to choose to cycle. And their e-assist especially helps open cycling up to more people, including older people, and to enable everyone to cycle more easily in hillier parts of Camden.

Camden has led the way in being the first borough to roll parking bays out. We also need other boroughs in London to adopt the same model.

It’s important to use contract powers to beef up enforcement, but until hiring and parking is consistent across boroughs problems are likely to persist.

The contract approach strengthens our action in support of people walking freely and unobstructed in our borough, keeping the bikes where they ought to be, in the bays.

CLLR ADAM HARRISON
Cabinet Member for a Sustainable Camden