A cyclist has been ordered to pay over £1,200 in fines and costs for riding his bike on four occasions through Grimsby’s pedestrianised town centre, the latest resident to fall foul of North East Lincolnshire Council’s controversial Public Space Protection Order (PSPO), which saw almost 1,500 fixed penalty notices issued in the space of just six months last year.

However, Grimsby councillor Ron Shepherd, who described the latest hefty fine as “a lesson to those who think they can flaunt the rules”, has insisted that the orders “aren’t simply ways for the council to make money”.

According to North East Lincolnshire Council, cyclist Richard Cameron received four fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for riding his bike on Grimsby’s Victoria Street, where cycling is prohibited under the town’s PSPO.

After failing to pay the fines, the 45-year-old was summoned to Grimsby Magistrates Court on 28 April, and, in his absence after failing to attend, found guilty of breaching the PSPO. Cameron was ordered by the court to pay a total of £1,224, including a £660 fine, £264 victim surcharge, and £300 in legal costs.

On the same day, 28-year-old Viktorija Kosareva was fined £508 after refusing to pay the FPN for walking her dog on Cleethorpes beach.

Grimsby town centre fined
Grimsby town centre fined (Image Credit: North East Lincolnshire Council)

In 2019, Grimsby became one of a number of towns to impose a cycling ban in pedestrianised zones, using a PSPO which the council claims was introduced to deal with nuisance, anti-social, and dangerous behaviour in the town centre and along Cleethorpes seafront.

However, the PSPO’s focus on cycling, and the use of externally contracted “enforcement officers”, has resulted in a long-running saga in the town, with hundreds of cyclists fined, some of them faced with eye-watering sums, and the council accused of targeting “old and slow” cyclists using their bikes to get into town and visit the shops, while ignoring youths “racing up and down”.

Most famously, in October 2022, a pensioner made headlines after telling the council to stick its £100 fine “up your arse”, while, in a similar manner to this latest case, a 31-year-old female cyclist was fined over £1,100 for riding her bike on Victoria Street in 2023 and refusing to pay the initial penalty.

Local cycling campaigners have long criticised the ban, arguing that it simply discourages people cycling into town, while also failing to deter the sort of anti-social behaviour it ostensibly sets out to combat.

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Active travel charity Cycling UK has also been a prominent critic of PSPOs, which it claims have the effect of “criminalising” cycling. During a debate on the issue last year, the charity’s head of campaigns Duncan Dollimore argued that “banning a whole class” of transport “is not how you address a problem”.

However, according to councillor Shepherd, the local authority’s portfolio holder for communities, Grimsby’s decision to ban cyclists from riding through its main shopping street has “rejuvenated” the town centre with “café and street culture”.

Shepherd was also responsible for introducing a ‘no cycling’ loudspeaker message on Victoria Street, which was played every 15 minutes before being quickly cut down to two messages an hour, after drawing comparisons to George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984.

Last year, we reported that, according to North East Lincolnshire Council’s official figures, 1,472 FPNs were issued for breaching the PSPO had been issued during the six months between April and September 2024, handed out entirely by Waste Investigations Support and Enforcement (WISE) officers.

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These externally contracted wardens have been heavily criticised for their interpretation of cycling PSPOs in other parts of the UK, and were accused last year of “running amok”, “lying in wait” for rule breakers, and even mistakenly fining cyclists riding legally in Colchester.

While not all of these almost 1,500 offences related to cycling, in April alone 50 people were issued FPNs under the cycling PSPO, with FPN numbers for the following months suggesting hundreds more were stopped and issued £100 fines by enforcement officers.

However, in a statement announcing the latest hefty PSPO fine, the local authority claimed that the PSPO is only “used sparingly”.

“The PSPOs are intended to deal with persistent anti-social behaviour in a local area that is detrimental to the community’s quality of life,” a council spokesperson said.

“They do so by imposing conditions on the use of that area to ensure everyone can use and enjoy public spaces without experiencing nuisance and annoyance.

“Given the wide-ranging scope of a PSPO, they are used sparingly and only after every other option has been exhausted.  Breach of a PSPO is a criminal offence subject to a fine on conviction of up to £1,000 however, you may be offered a fixed penalty notice (FPN) as an alternative to prosecution.

“Recently, the public were consulted on their support for the renewal of the PSPOs with 85 per cent supporting the renewal of Grimsby town centre PSPOs.”

Councillor Ron Shepherd Grimsby 'no cycling' PSPO
Councillor Ron Shepherd Grimsby 'no cycling' PSPO (Image Credit: North East Lincolnshire Council)

Meanwhile, Shepherd used this week’s fines to warn cyclists in Grimsby about the consequences of breaching the town centre cycling ban, while praising the WISE wardens, who he claims have made the borough a “better place”.

“It’s great to see action being taken by the courts in relation to PSPO breaches,” Shepherd said.

“These orders aren’t simply ways for the council to make money, they are there to protect the community surrounding them and ensure everyone has a welcoming and enjoyable time when in North East Lincolnshire.

“Let this be a lesson to those who think they can flaunt the rules too. Whether you are in breach of a PSPO once or more than that, you are not above them.

“The WISE colleagues have been instrumental in this since starting in December 2023 and have had a massive impact in making the borough a better place.”

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Last year, we reported that third-party WISE wardens were accused of unfairly targeting cyclists in Colchester, including mistakenly fining them £100 for riding their bikes in areas where cycling is permitted and threatening them with a £1,000 penalty if they appealed the fine.

Cyclists also claimed these WISE officers were “lying in wait” for rule-breaking cyclists, and said they even told one elderly female cyclist that she wasn’t allowed to use a city centre road because she doesn’t pay “road tax”.

Following a public outcry and a campaign by local cycling activists in Colchester, the council finally agreed to pause the cycling fines and waive any penalties mistakenly handed out by WISE, before announcing in November that it would pursue an ‘education first’ policy from now on when it comes to its cycling ban, a model campaigners say should be replicated across the country.