A major authority has launched a sweeping new crackdown on dockless e-bike obstructions, which have been causing nuisance over the years.
Under the tougher measures, Westminster Council will hit rental bike giants with £100 on-the-spot fines every time one of their e-bikes is found blocking pavements, road access or parking bays.
The Labour-run authority has written directly to operators Lime and Forest, warning that persistent pavement clutter will no longer be tolerated and demanding that companies dramatically step up efforts to keep streets clear.
The move follows months of rising frustration among residents fed up with weaving around toppled bikes on narrow pavements and dealing with what the council describes as “obstacle-course conditions”.
In the first week alone, council enforcement officers dished out 150 fixed penalty notices, each costing operators £100 per bike.
At the current rate, Westminster said it expects to issue up to 50 fines every day, putting total penalties on track to exceed £1million within a year.
The council explained that any income beyond the cost of enforcement will be channelled straight back into street-safety improvements, accessibility schemes, and public-realm upgrades.
The move marks a clear and deliberate break with the traditional “seize and store” model, where councils impound badly parked hire bikes and later return them to operators.
The council will be issuing £100 fines immediately to operators of e-bikes parked poorly
|
LABOUR WESTMINSTER
The tougher measures come after the council argued that towing away nuisance e-bikes has become too costly, resource-intensive and fundamentally incapable of keeping pace with the volume of pavement obstruction seen across central London.
Instead, the borough has opted for what it describes as a faster, sharper and more effective deterrent in the form of penalties.
Despite the installation of 380 designated e-bike parking bays across the borough in 2023, non-compliance remains a stubborn problem—particularly in overcrowded parts of the West End.
Soho Square and Berkeley Square have become notorious hotspots, with operators repeatedly lining up bikes just outside official bays, creating cramped bottlenecks for the thousands of pedestrians passing through each day.
The council has introduced tougher punishments for operators of e-bikes
|
WESTMINSTER COUNCIL
The council has now set out strict expectations for both Lime and Forest.
These include the rapid removal of any bike reported as obstructing a pavement and the deployment of additional staff to problem areas to prevent bikes piling up.
Councillor Max Sullivan said: “People want these rental e-bikes parked in bays, not in the way. We are the first council to issue on-the-spot £100 fines to the companies per bike when they turn pavements into obstacle courses.
“With this new approach, our fines to Lime and Forest could reach £1million within a year, which we will reinvest in making streets safer and more accessible.”
Mr Sullivan insisted that Westminster is not anti-cycling, but that companies must be forced to take responsibility for the disorder their services create.
E-bikes have been found to be blocking pavements in London | PA“Shared e-bikes have great potential, which is why we’ve created 380 proper places to park them, where most rides already end,” he said.
“But real issues persist, and we won’t allow the private profit of shared e-bike companies to come at the expense of the public accessibility and safety of our streets.”
The dispute takes place against a backdrop of regulatory vacuum with dockless bike hire schemes in England currently operating without a national framework, leaving local authorities with limited legal powers to control where operators run services or how their bikes are deployed.
The council has repeatedly called on the Government to tighten the rules, with it now welcoming moves in the forthcoming English Devolution Bill, which is expected to give councils fresh powers to license and regulate e-bike and e-scooter hire operators.
