Dire: hire bikes piled high on London streets

They have transformed the way we get about in our city but the scourge of discarded cycles strewn on our pavements has become an increasing menace. Robbie Griffiths reports

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FOR some of us, they're a nuisance to dodge on the way to work. But for others, the recent arrival of thousands of rental e-bikes strewn across London's pavements is a dangerous hazard that can make them fear leaving the house.

Yemi Dada is a retired financial adviser from south-east London. Dada is albino, which led to glaucoma, leaving him partially sighted. Every time he leaves his house these days, he has trouble navigating e-bikes, which are often left on the tactile paving that helps him locate pedestrian crossings. Dada says he now leaves his home less regularly, for fear of walking into a bike that's been left in the street and fallen over. When he does, he has to move very slowly or take expensive taxis.

Sarah Gayton of the National Federation of the Blind says carded rental e-bikes are a menace to the blind community. She tells the story of a lady who suffered a huge black eye after tripping over one near her south London home, one of several people she knows who have been hurt recently.

Gayton calls the estimated 30,000 bikes that have arrived over the past five years or so an "invasion". "There have always been obstructions on the streets, but this is on a scale that's never been seen before," she says.

The e-bikes are heavy and hard to move. In 2021, a man in Northampton died after he fell and broke his hip while trying to move a discarded rental scooter that was blocking the path of his electric wheelchair. They can be costly too: the bikes have fallen onto parked cars, causing hundreds of pounds' worth of damage.

And this year, the battle over the e-bikes could get even more bitter. Westminster Hub, a group which gives legal help to residents in the central London borough, say they are hoping to start legal action against Lime, the capital's biggest e-bike company, after feeling that agreements made on parking are not being not kept up by the company.