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In respect of dockless bikes, Tyler Linton from Street Scene,
took the Committee through the current procedures and powers and
what the next steps were.  The Committee
had agreed at a special meeting on 2 October 2019 to recommend a
bye law to Full Council for adoption which Full Council did at its
meeting on 30 October 2019.  This bye
law would be going to London Councils for adoption and should come
on stream in the autumn which would give the Council greater powers
to remove the bikes.
 
Until this bye law came into force, the
Council did not have many powers to remove bikes but under the 1980
Highways Act, the Council did have the power to move obstructions
and Street Scene were working with Enforcement to remove bikes that
were causing obstructions.  Bikes
were being removed but not to a huge extent.  The Council did want to be able to issue a
Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) and a policy, based on the A Boards
policy was being drafted to enable this.  The policy was scheduled to be taken to
Cabinet for approval in May.
 
Hackney Council was the first local authority
in the country to have bays for dockless bikes. 
However, people were still leaving them on the pavement.
 
Councillor Stops gave the service 8 out of 10
on bikes.  He suggested that the users
should photograph where they left them and if they constantly left
them inappropriately, the user should be removed from the app.
 
Councillor Hanson said that users would see
the £2 fine for leaving them inappropriately as a cost rather
than a penalty so it would not be a deterrent.  She suggested that a higher fine would deter users
from leaving them on the pavements.
 
Councillor Snell asked where the telephone
number was for reporting bikes left on pavements.  Tyler Linton said that the contact details for
Beryl and Jump, the two companies the Council had contracts with
for these bikes, had gone out in a press release.  He would check the details were available on the
Council's website.
 
Tyler Linton said that there were 8,000 Jump
users and increasing the fine was a fair point.  The Council also needed to ensure that the
dockless bike bays were kept clear of
vehicles and the car shaped bike parks would be introduced in them
shortly.  In respect of users
photographing where they had left the bikes, the Council had no
powers to force the other 4 bike companies to remove the
bikes.  The Council could ask Jump and
Beryl to put more staff on the ground to patrol where the bikes
were left.  27,000 journeys had been
made in January alone which would mean a huge number of photos
would need to be stored.  Tyler Linton
said the Council could ask Jump and Beryl about the repeat
offenders
 
Councillor Stops asked what was being done
about abandoned bikes as there were lots of rusty dumped bikes in
the borough.  Gerry McCarthy said
that if the bikes were dangerous then the Council could remove them
without putting signage up to say that bikes would be
removed.  If they were not dangerous
then the Council had to put signage up and give a 7 days' Notice of
removal.
 
Councillor Fajana-Thomas said that she had raised a bike
removal as one of her casework matters and it had taken 2 months to
remove the bike.  Gerry McCarthy said
that whether the bike was deemed dangerous or not was at the
discretion of the Enforcement Officer. 
If it was not deemed dangerous then as
said previously, it required signage and Notice of removal to be
given.