Vandalism blamed for bike hire scheme scale back

Published 31 July 2023

Last month it was revealed over half the bikes in the hire scheme needed
repair

A cycle hire scheme is being scaled back after a spate of vandalism took
most bikes off the road.
About 800 of the 1,000 bikes on the Bee Bikes network in Greater Manchester
are currently damaged or missing.

Over 1,000 bike stands in the region will temporarily close to bring bikes
back to areas they are most used.

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said transport bosses will build the
service "back up in a manageable way".

"Some docking stations are being temporarily suspended, but that's
necessary to bring bikes back to the places where they're most used," he
said.
Adding the suspended docking stations were in areas which had "very few
rides per day".

Earlier this year, a spike in vandalism resulted in a backlog of Bee Bike
repairs leaving the 64,350 active users struggling to find bicycles in the
city, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Last month it was revealed more than half the bikes offered in the region's
hire scheme were in need of repair.

Beryl chief executive officer Phil Ellis the scheme had suffered "quite
heavy damage" over a short period of time which had led to not enough bikes
available and said the company was working with Greater Manchester Police
to recover missing bikes.

Mr Burnham, who urged users to "look after" the bikes, said the cost of
repairs is being shared by operator Beryl and Transport for Greater
Manchester, but the bill for the taxpayer was "not significant".

"It's not a case of use it or lose it, it's a case of just look after it,"
he said.

TfGM said new locking rules and heavier fines when bikes were not returned
properly will be introduced.

The Bee Bikes scheme was launched in 2021 three years after Chinese bike
sharing firm Mobike pulled out of Manchester after it lost 10% of its
cycles each month to theft and vandalism.

<https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-66358928>

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