A London borough has threatened to evict the cycle hire firm Lime because of the number of abandoned e-bikes that are “causing havoc” on the streets.
Brent council has given the dockless bike operator until the end of October to address safety concerns or remove all 750 bikes that are currently permitted in the borough.
Lime has become the dominant operator in London by flooding the capital with 30,000 battery-powered bikes – but has seen their use soar, with millions of rides a year.
Brent said it had formally warned Lime that it must remove its bikes by October 31 “if it continues to ignore [the] council’s safety concerns and suggestions for improvements to the scheme”.
The council has been in “partnership” with Lime since 2019 as part of a commitment to promote “green” travel and reduce pollution.
But it issued the ultimatum in response to the “high and increasing number of incidents” of inconsiderately parked and abandoned e-bikes and the “often slow response time” by Lime.
Brent leader Muhammed Butt said: “Lime bikes left scattered across our streets are causing havoc for other road users, especially for pedestrians and disabled people.
“Residents have gone sour on Lime and the council is receiving repeated, regular complaints about the bikes left across paths and roads in a haphazard way.
“This is putting unsustainable pressure on council staff who are spending time cleaning up after Lime. Something needs to change as the current situation is unsustainable.”
The council wants the bikes to be parked in dedicated bays – with those left elsewhere removed within an agreed timeframe.
But this would require parking spaces on most streets in the borough, as dockless firms want customers to be able to hire a bike – and park it - near to their starting point and destination.
The council is understood to have created about 10 “pilot” parking bays, with the aim of increasing this to 100 over an unspecified period – just over two per square kilometre, and well below Lime’s minimum required density. Independent experts recommend 25 parking bays per square kilometre.The council also wants Lime to increase its £10 penalty for riders who abandon bikes in unsafe locations.
The Brent Cycling Campaign, part of the London Cycling Campaign, said it was “disappointed” at the decision to ban Lime bikes.
It said in a statement to the Standard: "Lime and Brent council must work together and stop this counterproductive blame game.
“As the highway authority, Brent council has the power to solve the challenges around shared e-bike parking: the solution is to provide sufficient marked bike parking areas on the road in problem areas, enforced in collaboration with the hire bike operator.
“We are surprised, given that other London boroughs have successfully addressed this issue for some time. Removing a popular zero emissions transport option is not the answer."
Tom Fyans, chief executive of the London Cycling Campaign, said: "We welcome the increased number of people cycling in London using bike hire schemes including Lime, and encourage all councils and operators to work together to maximise the opportunity for more Londoners to use them safely and responsibly.
"We urgently call on all councils to work with operators to increase parking provision to meet rising demand so that hire bikes continue to play their role in bringing the joy of cycling to more and more Londoners"
Transport for London is leading plans for a capital-wide set of rules for dockless bike operators and e-scooters but this is unlikely to be introduced before 2026.
Across London, there were more than 12 million trips on Lime bikes by 1.25million riders between 2019 and 2023. Forest has about 10,000 dockless e-bikes, while TfL has about 15,000 “Boris bikes”, though these have to be “docked” in racks.
Mr Butt said Lime had failed to respond adequately to the council’s proposals. “Unless Lime changes the way it works with us, we are out of road for its activities in Brent,” he said.
But some people took to social media to ask the council whether it would take similar action against cars parked on pavements.
E-bike firms say “problem parking” now occurs in only about five per cent of hires – about a quarter of the scale of the problem previously.
Lime has also been able to reduce anti-social parking by making it harder for its bikes to be “hacked” and ridden without consent.
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A Lime spokesperson said: “We are proud to have run a successful shared e-bike service in Brent for the last six years, with tens of thousands of local residents now using Lime to make essential journeys in the borough.
“We understand the critical importance of maintaining a safe service and avoiding pavement obstructions and are committed to working with the council to deliver the required improvements to extend our operations here.
“It is possible to move to a mandatory parking model in Brent, but the council needs to install a sufficient number of parking locations for people to park at.
“We need these locations in order to maintain a tidy and easy to use service that can continue to contribute to the council’s active travel goals. We can support this process by providing trip data and infrastructure funding."
