A Lime bike left outside Warren Street tube station

BIKE firms will be ­punished with £100 fines if customers leave their rides in residents, disabled and doctors bays under new rules introduced by the Town Hall.

As part of a campaign to eradicate the scourge of badly parked bicycles owned by hire firms Lime and Forest, the council have announced this week a raft of new measures.

They include £100 fines for bikes left in residents’ parking bays, and new powers for council teams to collect dumped bikes – charging bike firms for time and storage.

At a scrutiny committee meeting in March, representatives of dockless bike firms Lime and ­Forest faced tough ­questioning from councillors over where bikes were left and how to cut down anti-social behaviour from users.

After that meeting, the council said it would start impounding bikes that blocked walkways and pavements.

The tighter manage­ment came even as the council signed extension deals with Lime and Forest to provide bikes in the borough.

But the companies were told that a 90 per cent compliance rate for safe parking bikes had to improve drastically under the new terms.

There were around three million recorded trips in Camden last year, showing the popularity of the hop-on-style bikes – but for many residents the regular sight of blocked pavements by dumped bikes had made them a scourge of Camden streets, not the congestion-busting, pollution-cutting service they were flagged as being.

Lime bikes in Euston Road [Simon Lamrock]

Environment chief Labour councillor Adam Harrison said: “It is vital that our streets remain safe and accessible for people walking around our borough, especially for those with mobility issues, blind and partially sighted individuals, wheelchair users and parents with prams.

“We want to reduce unnecessary motor vehicle trips and promote active travel options including cycling, and the availability of dockless hire bikes is important to this. But we are also aware that inconsiderate and inappropriate parking of these can obstruct pavements, pedestrian crossings, and access for residents and businesses.

“We are collecting resident and business feedback about hotspot areas for bike-dumping and are using our enforcement powers to remove and store e-bikes that are causing obstructions and that continue to be an issue. We are then storing them for collection by the parent company.”

He added that residents could report dumped bikes via a council app and council staff were patrolling known hotspots to remove bikes.

A Lime spokesperson said: “We recognise that one of the most significant challenges facing our industry is the issue of misparked bikes.

“We take it seriously, which is why outside of fining and banning repeat offenders of poor parking, we have expanded our on-street team who tidy and remove misparked bikes to ease congestion at busy locations. This has led to marked improvements over the last six months.

“While the vast ­major­ity of people use Lime bikes responsibly, we encourage the public to report any instances of antisocial behaviour.”