A London council is to begin seizing badly-parked e-bikes as well as electric hire bikes run by companies without permission to operate in the borough.
We’ve reported on the saga of Ealing Council for a number of weeks, after Voi refused to leave the borough after the council chose not to renew the company’s licence earlier this year.
At the time, Voi argued: “There is no statutory licensing regime that requires a council’s permission to operate dockless e-bikes on the public highway, and we do not believe that the selection process used gives the council grounds to exclude a compliant operator”.
“Neither, within this context, do we believe it to be fair to Ealing residents that Voi’s removal would deprive them of the cheapest per-minute dockless e-bike rental service in London. That said, we’d much rather be operating in Ealing under a formal agreement – it would give officers greater oversight and it’s better for the borough’s finances.”
But last week, the council voted through plans to give its officers the authority to seize e-bikes without a court order, the Local Democracy Reporting Service says.
The council say the new powers will “protect the council from obstructive incursions by an e-bike operator without an agreement in place”. E-bike hire operators will also be required to reimburse the council for the cost of recovering their fleet from the council-owned garage where they will be impounded.
To tackle obstructive parking, the council are also set to introduce 300 physically marked parking spaces for e-bikes, whilst stronger geo-location and new efforts encouraging residents to report bad parking are intended to hold Lime and Forest, who do have an agreement with the council, to be more vigilant in managing their fleet.
The ongoing drama of Voi’s unlicensed operation in Ealing has, along with the “patchwork” regulation of the city’s e-bikes, led the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to liken the situation to the “Wild West”.
Newly devolved powers give the Mayor of London the authority to bring in city-wide regulations to the industry, but have been delayed by Department for Transport guidance that needs to be issued, as well as plans for a public consultation on the matter.
The proposal has also been welcomed by e-bike operators, who see the ending of the borough-by-borough system as a means of expanding their market and accessibility across the city.
Ealing Council would not be the first council in the capital to have taken a stricter regulatory approach to e-bike hire operators, with Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea Councils among the authorities to have repeatedly seized badly-parked machines parked on junctions and pedestrian crossings.
As reported in last week’s e-bike news round-up, Westminster Council has levied over £300,000 in notices and seizure fees, from issuing more than 5,000 fixed penalty notices to e-bike hire companies.
