More than 100 Lime and Forest e-bikes that were blocking pavements in central London have been seized by council officials.
The City of London Corporation, the local authority for the City’s “Square Mile” financial area, seized the bikes and charged the firms a fee of £235 per bike before allowing them to be recovered.
It said more than 100 of the dockless bikes were removed from the streets over a two-week period because they had been left in areas where they caused an obstruction or presented an “immediate danger to others”.
This means the dockless bikes firms will have been fined in the region of £25,000 to get their bikes back.
It is the latest controversy to hit the dockless bike industry, which has seen a huge growth in the use of hired e-bikes in London amid calls for the introduction of Londonwide rules to curb their numbers and tackle anti-social parking.
Last year Brent council threatened to evict Lime because of issues with abandoned bikes, but eventually struck a compromise deal.
According to the City corporation, the crackdown was taken “to encourage hire operators to manage their own fleet and customers to comply with good parking behaviour”.
The bikes were stored in a safe location for 24 hours, before Lime and Forest were able to collect them after paying the £235 release fee, which covered the City’s cost of removal and storage.
The City corporation already provides designated bays where e-bikes can be parked, such as in former car parking bays in Finsbury Square.
It has added 300 more designated parking spaces across the Square Mile.
But the sheer number of e-bikes being made available for hire – Lime is thought to have a fleet of 25,000 to 30,000 bikes and Forest of about 15,000 bikes – means many are dumped on the pavement.
City officials said it launched the crackdown in response to the scale of complaints it was receiving about dumped e-bikes.
Lime’s global chief executive Wayne Ting was in London last month, and met Transport for London commissioner Andy Lord and Shravan Joshi, the City’s transport chief, to discuss future regulation and how Lime aimed to “work collaboratively” to solve the problems caused by the way some Lime riders dump the bikes carelessly.
Lime has offered to fund new parking bays in the City through its parking infrastructure fund.
Mr Joshi, chair of the City’s planning and transportation committee, said: “I recently met with the CEO of Lime, along with their CFO and UK Director which provided an opportunity to ensure their global senior leadership fully understands the impact.
“Lime has seen remarkable success and with 16 million journeys taken (including by me!) during London’s commuting hours in 2024, their presence on the streets is undeniable, but so too are the challenges posed by bikes cluttering our pavements.
“The action plan from Lime is welcome news, particularly a funded programme that helps ensure we can continue to see dockless bikes on London’s streets without causing disruption and obstacles to others.
“Alongside this, we will keep up the pressure to make sure results are quantified and meaningful, alongside Transport for London and London Councils.”
Lime is making £5m available to London boroughs to create 2,500 designated bike parking bays.
It has also pledged to beef up its in-house bike warden squads and will aim to move badly-parked bikes before complaints are received.
TfL commissioner Mr Lord, speaking to The Standard last week about plans to regulate dockless e-bikes, said: “We have got to have better co-ordination around how bikes are parked.
“We need to make sure they are not left in the way of pedestrians – and there is technology [that can help us do that].
“Lime are committing to put some extra money into improving safety and their response to removing bikes that are inappropriately parked.
“Greater co-ordination, working with the boroughs, we have got a clear view that we want active travel and cycling to continue to grow, but we need to do it in a way that isn’t causing issues for other road users and pavement users.
“We got a very clear view from the CEO of Lime that that is a priority for them.”
Asked if he wanted to retain dockless e-bikes for hire in London, Mr Lord added: “I think dockless bikes have got a part to play.
“Clearly we [TfL] are an operator ourselves, so we can’t get into commercial issues, but I think there is a role for dockless bikes to play.
“But we need to improve the co-ordination and the ability for them to be parked in a way that doesn’t cause aggravation and accessibility issues.”
Alex Berwin, head of policy at Forest, said: "It is unfortunate a very small number of Forest e-bikes were collected as part of this action.
“However, we are committed to working with the City of London to ensure the hundreds of residents, visitors and commuters who rely on our e-bikes have a safe and convenient location to responsibly park their e-bike, as well as minimise obstructions for non-users.
“We look forward to continuing our partnership with the City of London and continue investing in essential infrastructure to support cycling across all boroughs."
Lime has been approached for comment.
