Call to pause Hounslow Lime trial after e-bike left in road junction

A Hounslow resident is calling for a trial of Lime e-bikes in the west London borough to be paused, claiming they are being "deliberately" left in "dangerous places".

Sateesh Battas said on one occasion young people intentionally parked a Lime bike in the middle of a junction.

Mr Battas, 50, added he believed it was only a matter of time before "somebody gets killed".

The council says it has been raising "awareness around parking responsibly".

It comes after the council launched an extended Lime e-bikes trial scheme in June, where residents are required to park them in parking zones located around the borough and take an end-of-trip photo, which is reviewed.

However, Mr Battas explained his road only has one small parking bay, and many bikes are left blocking the pavement or leaning against cars, or deliberately parked across residents' driveways.

He said when the teenagers were captured on his doorbell camera, "one of them put the bike at the junction, which is as far as way as possible from the bike bay as you can get it, and then the other teenager then put it horizontal so it was completely blocking the road and then they walked off".

"A very large car came around the corner, obviously saw the bike, climbed on to the kerb, you know, to get past it and almost clipping our car just to navigate around the bike. It's terrible," he said.

It comes after other London boroughs reported issues with Lime bikes, including areas like Wandsworth which have no agreement with Lime but are finding dozens of the bikes left on pavements.

When Mr Battas reached out to Lime about the issues, it said it "apologised for the inconvenience" and would send his concerns to the "operations team in your area for further review" in case bikes need to be moved.

However, he has not heard anything since then and does not think Lime is "going to be able to [move bikes] instantly".

Mr Battas also complained to Hounslow Council about the safety issues caused by the parked bikes, but said he received generic responses explaining the scheme.

"The council told me twice now - and so have Hounslow Traffic and a councillor - that the trial will be until six months from the last designated rollout - so that's February."

He continued: "[The council] are not really doing anything, they just say to wait until February, but if somebody gets killed, whose responsibility is it then? Ultimately, it's the council that allowed this.

"These bikes just need to go. They're not working."

Councillor Katherine Dunne, Hounslow Council's cabinet member for climate, environment and transport said: "We have had great take up of the scheme so far, with over 40,000 trips in the first month.

"Our council staff along with Lime have been working hard to raise awareness around parking responsibly in the dedicated parking bays."

She urged residents to report "any issues regarding abandoned bikes, suspected hacking attempts, noise and other operational issues to Lime in the first instance".

"This is a trial scheme and we value our residents feedback, which is why council officers are monitoring feedback on the scheme throughout the trial and working closely with Lime to address any concerns."

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