The Transport and Air Quality Committee of Richmond Council met with representatives of the hire bike operators Lime and Forest in an open meeting on 24 June 2025. See https://richmond.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/993257 to view the meeting.

EastSheenMatters has published many posts about cycling in the borough over the last nine months, including several on Lime Bikes. You can access these by going into the blog site and searching for Lime Bikes.

Executive summary:

–          Council are working on a paper that will be discussed at a comittee meeting later this year (September?) regarding the strategy for hire bikes.

–          Recent consultation resulted in 1200 responses, about a third of these were negative; with main complaints being about inconsiderate riding and parking.

–          The council officer noted the overarching objectives to find more sustainable transport options to replace car journeys and how hire bikes had been useful for micro mobility, especially parts of the borough further from train stations and bus routes.

–          Lime has been operating in the borough for a number of years, has seen strong growth in usage, currently has typically towards 1000 bikes across the borough as per its agreement with the council. Lime say demand is not always met and noted Hounslow has around 2300 bikes.

–          Richmond operates a hybrid model with some dedicated bays in town centres and flexible parking elsewhere; Lime likes this model.

–          The pros/cons of a bay-only parking model was discussed. It was noted that this would require a 25 bays per square km, or roughly one every 250m; Lime’s own data indicates that people want to have a bike within two minutes’ walk.  Overall this would be more than 500 bays across the borough, using space that is currently on-street parking – politically difficult.  From a night safety perspective and for convenience for users, parking at your destination as per the current flexible model was noted as a benefit.

–          It was noted that users of Lime bikes are more diverse that typical cyclists, with more women, ethnic minorities and wider age groups using the bikes.

–          It was noted that operators’ pricing models are increasingly seeing regular users moving to prepaid bundles rather than pay-as-you-go, and that there were discounts available for some groups, such as freedom pass holders. See https://www.li.me/en-gb/why/community/lime-access

–          Hacked bikes remain a problem and all operators are working on hardware and software solutions to prevent bikes being ridden except during a bona fide hire.

–          Hacked bikes led to a disproportionate proportion of complaints about parking and journeys were not covered by public liability insurance unlike hired rides.

–          Lime is working to educate users about sensible parking practice, but as different rules apply in different boroughs, this is difficult. 

–          Lime claim to have about a dozen operatives working across the borough and that bikes that are complained about are dealt with in about two hours.  The firm is trying to make it easier to contact Lime with feedback.

–          Lime referred to studies that rider behaviour on Lime bikes was not any worse than general cyclist behaviour and that the pay-per-minute pricing was not a factor in jumping red lights or cycling on the pavement; enforcement of such misdemeanours is not possible under current technological limitations.

–     There was some discussion about how it is expected that the Department for Transport will devolve regulation of hire bikes to TfL, and this could lead to centralisation and consistency across the London boroughs in due course, perhaps with different application for outer London and inner London.  

Comments

“Bikes that are complained about are dealt with in about two hours.” Why should it be necessary for removal to depend on a complaint? The bikes dumped in Beverley Brook were obviously not usable. Can that not be identified by Lime?