“The situation is not ideal” – Hounslow’s Cabinet Member for Transport talks e-bikes with The Chiswick Calendar

Cllr Katherine Dunne

UPDATE:

Please note since this story was written we have published a new story. While Cllr Dunne stands by what she said in this interview, we have had new information which puts some of it in a different light.

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Poor service to e-bike users raises big questions about LB Hounslow’s management of e-bike rentals

Cllr Katherine Dunne on trying to act as sheriff in the e-bikes’ Wild West

The decision to award e-bike contracts to Voi and Forest instead of continuing with existing provider Lime bikes garnered some ferocious bad publicity for the Borough of Hounslow, with national headlines pointing out some of its more ludicrous side-effects:

The Guardian: ‘”A nuisance and an eyesore”: hire e-bikes accumulate at London border between rival firms’
London Evening Standard: ‘Interactive map shows London’s e-bike no-go zones as riders slam “insane” Lime ban’

Comedian and TV presenter Dara Ó Briain, who lives in Chiswick, kicked off the furore by likening the border crossing with Richmond at Chiswick Bridge to ‘Checkpoint Charlie’.

Both ends of the bridge were littered with abandoned bikes as Lime bikes changed their settings once they lost the tender so their bikes would cut out at the border of Hounslow and cease to function as anything other than exceptionally heavy pedal bikes.

READ ALSO: Dara Ó Briain likens e-bike borders to ‘Checkpoint Charlie’

READ ALSO: Chiswick Area Forum to discuss Lime bikes

Apart from the torrent of abuse, there have been attempts at petitions to reverse the decision and reinstate Lime in the borough, and talks between the boroughs and Lime to try and ameliorate the situation, but the e-bike bun-fight continues to inconvenience riders, those very people the Council’s “active travel” policy is supposed to be trying to encourage.

Lime bikes abandoned at Chiswick Bridge in August, where they stopped working

It’s all about the money

Now that the dust has settled, Cabinet Member for Climate, Environment & Transport talked to The Chiswick Calendar about the decision, and the flak it has received.

“I’m used to it”, she told me. “We get it no matter what we do”.

But she has to admit it is ridiculous that the Lime bikes cut out in the most inconvenient places, leaving riders with no option but to dump the bike and continue on foot, doesn’t she?

“There have been some justified complaints”, she acknowledges. The decision to make the bikes stop working was Lime’s, not the Council’s, she points out, and after some further negotiation they have now agreed the bikes should continue to work so people can continue riding through LB Hounslow.

But Lime riders cannot leave the bikes in the designated e-bike parking places within the borough. These are for the use of Voi and Forest only. If riders leave them elsewhere, they are liable to a fine. So if you live in Hounslow you still can’t ride a Lime bike home.

“This is not how we want things to be”, she said. The Council has found themselves trying to square a circle – to regulate an unregulated market without the power to affect anything beyond their own borders.

Did they realise truncated journeys and abandoned bikes would be the result of their decision?

“We did anticipate it to some extent. It wasn’t one of the key things that we were thinking about”.

What was the key thing they were thinking about?

Money is the answer. They went for the highest bidders, and to be fair they would have been criticised in other quarters had they not maximised the commercial opportunity.

How much more money have they received from Voi and Forest than was offered by Lime?

“I can’t tell you that because it’s commercially sensitive information”.

Will you now rethink the decision and give Lime a contract as well?

“We can’t do that because we have issued exclusive contracts that last for two years”.

Parking an issue

Putting money above other considerations

I put it to Katherine that by prioritising money over user convenience the Labour council had done doing exactly what Labour has always criticised about Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation of national assets – making it so that money trumps every other consideration.

“Local councils are strapped for cash”, she offered, “and councils, unlike governments have to balance their budgets.

“The money was only one thing amongst many others” they considered, she added.

Aside from the money, what other things did you consider?

“Parking compliance”, she answered. “If we had given the contract to Lime there would have been no incentive for them to improve parking compliance”.

Surely the same could be said about each of the bike companies once they had won the contract, except that their reputation and their desire eventually to win a pan-London contract should be incentive enough for them to stick to the conditions of their contract? There will always be a certain amount of non-compliance no matter what local councils or bike operators say.

Cllr Katherine Dunne

The inevitable consequences of an unregulated market and why there is no pan-London scheme

There were teething problems with Lime but over the period they operated in the borough they seemed to have ironed those out. There were plenty of bikes available, largely in the places they were supposed to be and complaints about them had tailed off.

Why did you put it out to tender at all? Why not continue as you were?

It is important to understand the history of how this has evolved, she told me:

“When Lime was the only one working in the borough, it worked.

“When Lime first started operating, there was no agreement, and there is no legislation to regulate it. Lime’s policy was that people could leave bikes anywhere. In the absence of regulation, boroughs started to introduce their own rules”.

Hounslow introduced parking bays, many of which are in residential streets, and Lime agreed to fine people who did not leave the bikes in them.

If a rider is a flagrant abuser of the system and just leaves bikes anywhere, what is supposed to happen is that is that they are warned and if they persist they are banned from using Lime bikes.

“That’s not what we’ve been seeing. We commissioned independent testing that showed people were not being banned”.

The Council decided to put the contracts out to tender because if they had just continued as they were with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) they would have had no legal power to enforce the rules they had agreed.

“Lime would have known they could get away with doing whatever they wanted.

“When we first signed the MoU with Lime, they were the only e-bike company wanting to operate in the borough but by this year that had changed. In theory any bike company could have set up in the borough to operate without agreement, but the tender gave us the right to issue contracts for exclusive operations.

“We delayed going out to tender earlier as we hoped the pan-London scheme would come in this year, but with that delayed for another couple of years we needed something robust in place”.

By this summer they found themselves in the position where there were other companies pushing for contracts.

“All the companies are quite aggressive about pushing their position”.

Was she surprised Lime didn’t win the tender?

“Yes”

Voi and Forest bikes

No London-wide scheme until at least 2027

A pan-London scheme is on the horizon, but it is a little way off.

Why has it been so difficult to arrange a pan-London scheme?

“There was talk of a pan-London scheme, but not all the boroughs would agree to it. TfL was trying to set up a pan-London scheme, which is why we signed up to it last year, but there was nothing compelling the bike companies to agree to it”.

E-bikes are relatively new, said Katherine. Her understanding is that whereas Transport for London is able to lay down the law across the capital on the Underground system, bus routes, the operation of cabs and Ubers, some of the road system and even the use of e-scooters, they do not as yet have the power to regulate the e-bike companies.

The e-bike companies have done their best to play one council off against another and undermine the attempt by TfL to regularise operations, Katherine told me, but the Government has listened to lobbying. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment bill, introduced to Parliament in July, included a measure enabling pan-London regulation, but it will not become law until next year.

“Realistically there will be no pan-London scheme until 2027”.

Meanwhile individual boroughs are left to make the best of it.

Lime bikes at ‘Checkpoint Charlie’

Making the best of a bad job

E-bike users say they find it irritating to have to download and use two apps and think about which is best to use depending on where they are going. One user I spoke to was disappointed to have lost his 50% discount for being an NHS worker and found it irritating there were fewer bikes available.

“There are loads at the station but they’re never in the residential streets. I used to be able to come out of my house and there would be a row of Lime bikes there, now I don’t know whether there will be bikes there or not, it’s a lucky dip”.

Katherine acknowledges there is a problem with Voi in particular not supplying enough bikes, but she hopes that is being resolved.

In part, Hounslow gave Voi and Forest the contracts in reaction to the feedback they had received from the public about Lime bikes creating street clutter, which also made its way into the national press:

The Telegraph: ‘Lime bikes kicked out of west London borough after ‘anti-social’ parking row’

Katherine says all three companies put in “quality bids” in terms of the services they would offer, but:

“The main factor was money”.

Forest announced in August it would be putting up its charges, raising the ‘pay as you go’ price by 50% to £1.50, attributing the rise to a doubling of the fees London boroughs charge for operational rights.

Forest bikes are in use in more than 20 boroughs – similar to Lime. They can be used to travel from Hounslow into Hammersmith and Fulham and beyond into central London. Voi bikes can be used to travel between Hounslow and Ealing. It is the Richmond border which is the most problematic.

Did they talk to Richmond before they decided to ditch Lime? Did they discuss the consequences?

Yes, she said, Council officers had talked to their opposite number in Richmond.

“I wasn’t there, but I’m sure it was raised”.

The Council is now talking to Richmond to see where else they could put in parking bays at the borders.

“The situation is definitely not ideal”, she said.

And Dara Ó Briain’s ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ comment?

“I have a sense of humour the same as anyone else”, she said, through gritted teeth.

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