City of London toughens electric bike rules with £10,000 fines for repeat offenders

Dockless electric bike firms in the City of London could face fines of up to £10,000 a month if they repeatedly fail to deal with badly parked bikes and poor rider behaviour.

Tougher rules were approved by the City of London Corporation's Streets and Walkways Sub-Committee on Tuesday, with offenders now facing harsher penalties.

The agreement covers the three companies allowed to operate in the Square Mile, including Lime, Forest and Voi.

It was approved in two votes, with the committee backing the new agreement by seven votes to one and approving Voi as a third operator by five votes to two.

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Other penalties can be imposed if companies exceed their allocated parking spaces, fail to deal with complaints quickly or allow the number of properly parked bikes to remain too low.

A survey carried out last summer found there were five times as many dockless bikes in the Square Mile compared with two years earlier.

Rapid growth has also led to complaints about bikes being left across pavements and other public spaces, prompting a trial of fixed penalty notices between March and May.

During the three months, 779 reports were made to operators about illegally parked bikes, resulting in 129 fixed penalty notices.

Lime received the most reports, with 449, and was issued 90 notices, while Forest received 319 reports and 34 notices, and Voi, which had only a small presence at the time, received 11 reports and five notices.

During the meeting, deputy chair Jacqui Webster said: "We are very good in this country at running flu jabs, drink aware, smoking campaigns. Why can we not do the same through our dockless bike operators?"

Tom Sleigh, the City of London Corporation's Planning and Transportation Committee Chair, accepted that the bikes needed to be better managed, but said the increase in cycling was broadly positive and supported the corporation's transport plans.

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The agreement is expected to raise around £455,360 each year, which will help pay for bike parking bays, maintenance, campaigns to improve rider behaviour and an extra street environment officer to help enforce parking rules.

Any money left over at the end of the year will go into the corporation's on-street parking reserve.

Parking spaces will be shared equally between Lime, Forest and Voi, although the agreement allows the spaces to be reallocated if demand for one operator is significantly lower than expected.

The companies are not allowed to actively deploy bikes into the city, although there is a limited exception for afternoon placements to ensure bikes are available for commuters travelling home.

Local authorities currently have limited powers over dockless bike companies.

New licensing powers are expected to be developed through secondary legislation, but they are not expected to come into force until at least mid-2028.

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