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news
Brighton cycle hangar (credit - Brighton Active Travel)Councillor says workers told to call police in event of “trouble” over Brighton & Hove bike hangars
Brighton & Hove City Council is said to be advising contractors installing bike hangars in the south coast city to call police should they be challenged by members of the public while going about their work – with the Labour councillor who raised the issue describing it as “inappropriate and unhelpful to threaten” residents raising concerns over how money is being spent.
The hangars, each able to accommodate up to six bicycles, are being rolled out across the city, with around 60 of them currently in place and a waiting list.
They have proven hugely popular with many local residents looking for somewhere to store their bikes, with all spaces allocated and a waiting list stretching into the hundreds.
However, they have met some opposition from people complaining that the hangars are an eyesore and take up car parking spaces – even though two can fit in the space occupied by one motor vehicle.
> Hove woman persuades council not to locate “unattractive” cycle hangar outside her home
The Argus reports that some local councillors have also raised concerns over a lack of full consultation before hangars were installed.
The city has been administered since 2020 by the Green Party, who have 20 of the 55 seats, which insists that there has been every opportunity for the introduction of the hangars to be debated.
At a council meeting last week, Green Party Councillor Hannah Allbrooke pointed out that the hangars had been included in the city’s local transport plan.
“We saw from the responses to the survey last year that residents really want them,” she said. “With so many people living in shared accommodation, flats or houses where storage space is at a premium, it can be so difficult for people to find spaces to store their cycles.
“The locations of those hangars are determined by where people asked for them,” she added.
At the meeting, however, opposition Labour and Conservative councillors voted for a detailed report on the bike parking units to be compiled and submitted to the council’s environment, transport and sustainability committee.
Tory councillor Robert Nemeth described the hangars as “unbeautiful objects springing up in inappropriate places” and claimed that “the council introduced the hangars without going through the usual channels – by the back door as it were.
“Those of us who serve on transport committee are well used to debating controversial issues and we do our best to scrutinise and improve any such policies before us. Financial, legal and equalities issues are all within our remit.
“But cycle hangars haven’t had a proper public airing,” he added. “There was a brief mention in the ‘budget council’ paperwork and some ‘traffic regulation order’ consultations for the most controversial placements but never a proper debate on the principle.”
The issue of council contractors being advised to contact police if people questioned what they were doing was raised following the meeting by a Labour councillor, John Allcock.
He said that residents of Cissbury Road approached workers who were installing two hangars there, when they had only been expecting one to be put in place.
According to Councillor Allcock, the contractors showed the residents an email from the council that said they should call police “if there was any trouble.”
The councillor, who maintained that his party backed the hangars in principle as part of efforts to promote active travel, said: “It’s certainly highly inappropriate and unhelpful to threaten well-meaning and responsible citizens with a call to the police when they question how council services are being implemented in their neighbourhood.
He added: “I’m very afraid that this zealot-like behaviour will only alienate citizens from engaging in the process of active travel rather than govern by consensus and win support.”
Council announces Beryl as new bike-share partner, with e-Bikes available to hire for first time
Meanwhile, the council has announced that it has awarded the contract to run its BTN BikeShare scheme, operated since its launch in 2017 by Hourbike but recently plagued by technical problems, to Beryl, which already operates a number of such schemes throughout the UK.
The current scheme is now being wound down ahead of closing on 31 December, with Beryl’s offer being launched in spring next year, reports the Argus.
Unlike the current scheme, e-bikes will be available to hire and will make up more than half of Beryl’s fleet – 468 of them, while there will be 312 push bikes.
Councillor Steve Davis, co-chair of Brighton & Hove City Council’s environment, transport and sustainability committee, said: “It’s very exciting to have a new operator on board.
“Beryl has a proven track record for delivering and operating cycle hire schemes nationwide and I can’t wait to see the new look fleet, with electric bikes, hit the streets of Brighton and Hove next year.
“Cycle hire is a fantastic way of getting around the city in an easy, active and sustainable way. BTN BikeShare is a community asset we can be very proud of as we enter a new era for the scheme.
“I’d also like to thank the current operator Hourbike for operating the scheme since its launch in 2017,” he added. “It’s thanks to their hard work, skill and dedication that BTN BikeShare has been such a success story for the city.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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25 comments
"people complaining that the hangars are an eyesore" - and streets disfigured by cars left blocking the road and on the pavements aren't an eyesore?
and streets disfigured by cars left blocking the road and on the pavements aren't an eyesore?
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see
Salisbury: Resident forced to dismantle 'unsightly' shed
I guess his neighbours are in favour of hangars then. Or as drivers often put it, "where am I supposed to leave it - you tell me"
https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/23199456.salisbury-resident-forc...
TBF that one is very unsightly. It's a 5-6ft high shiplap shed attached to the front of a detached house running right up to the front window level.
They've admitted they "made a mistake" wrt putting it at the front.
They could have either put it round the back, or arranged to not be subject to planning enforcement - eg by making it a moveable structure attached by padlock to a ground anchor.
Guess it's in the eye of the beholder, looks fine to me. I'd sooner my neighbour had one of those than a massive panel van or motorhome parked in that drive, which he would be allowed to have there with impunity.
Interesting that the article says 'Mr Arnold' - but a little shows it's 'Dr Arnold' (he doesn't appear to have quite been struck off - and even if he had, he'd surely still be a Dr).
One imagines it's pretty much standing orders for council employees that if someone attempts to hinder you in your work, don't get engaged yourself but contact the police; the councillor 's attempt to portray this as "they'll send in the Gestapo if you raise any objections" merely serves to highlight the paucity of his arguments.
They don't work for the council anyway !
Cllr Nemeth is the epitome of the Tory 'anti-woke' culture warrior.
Earlier this year he got in trouble for falsely claiming a local school had banned the words 'mum' and 'dad', a claim he has refused to retract despite the school correcting him and receiving threats.
Not the first time he's gotten in trouble either:
He sounds like a nasty piece of work
And a twat. He definitely sounds like a twat.
I would expect it to be standard process;
I could also see them having explicitly reminded workers of this because of the level of reaction that committing 'war on the motorist' by reallocating 5-10sqm to any other road user can result in (from a tiny portion of british population).
See LTN's being doused in oil, rammed out the way with construction equipment, drivers on footway etc) as well as available 'weapons' - A *bleep* cyclist complaining about road infra has a d-lock to hit the workmen with at worst; The equivilent *bleep* driver has a 2+ Ton vehicle to ram them with, so any escalation is liable to be extremely serious...
in a few months once the hangars are installed and people realise they do not mean the end of civilisation - but actually enhance an area, and people are accustomed to them, things will quieten down. The council have just got to hold their nerve. Cycle parking was, according to the article, included in the the city's Transport Plan. This is a public document so Cllrs and public could have scrutinised it. That is how policy is delivered - through plans, scrutiny of plans, local elections and consultation. Residents can react by voting for an anti cycle hangar party - not by challenging contractors.
I think this is less about holding their nerve and more about the opposition councillors using the opportunity to score cheap points againsts the greens.
Just petty local politics.
We all know that there is 'asking... and 'asking".
Does said politician get upset about the signs in shop windows, dentists, GP surgeries, all council buildings that the public have access to, that essentially say 'speak to us nicely, or we'll call the Police.'
Isn't that even enshrined in law following CoVid?
What's the difference - are these guys installing the units supposed to just take abuse? Should they not have the same degree of protection that a receptionist in a town hall (or what ever they are called nowadays)?
As usual in politics, it's heartwarming to see how bitter enemies can jump into bed with each other - if only to spite a third party. Or in this case the "encouragement" given to active travel by the two main Westminster parties is entirely dependent on how they think the popular wind's blowing on that day.
Not that the others are better. While the SNP has at least got a 10% active travel budget target through exactly what this is spent on remains to be seen. It might go to buses or even "green" electric cars if the electorate gets restive. They didn't back "20s plenty" either.
Probably more an indictment on the possible lows in behaviour expected from a dismal sub-section of entitled motorists.
an email from the council that said they should call police “if there was any trouble”
Ho! Ho! Ho! It would be long after Christmas before there was any response by police to anti-cyclist aggression
"Tory councillor Robert Nemeth described the hangars as “unbeautiful objects springing up in inappropriate places” and claimed that “the council introduced the hangars without going through the usual channels – by the back door as it were.
“Those of us who serve on transport committee are well used to debating controversial issues and we do our best to scrutinise and improve any such policies before us."
I wonder if the good councillor finds all motor vehicles beautiful and appropriately parked, and was the decision to use vast areas of public space to store them debated by the transport committee?
No? Well STFU about the cycle hangars then.
I can imagine some of the anti-cycling residents getting very wound up about the hangars and becomming aggressive to the people putting them in, whose job it is most definitely not to defend them or to explain council policies; that's what councillors are for.
Cllr Robert Nemeth has claimed to be a "keen cyclist" but opposes cycle infrastructure in Brighton & Hove at every opportunity, preferring to get a photo of himself looking concerned in the local rag. Labour just gained the other seat in his ward by a landslide, so likely he'll be out of a job in May's local elections.
Councillor Robert Nemeth appears remarkably like a puppet of Grant Shapps standing on a beer crate.
Bear in mind that inside most MP's and Minister's there's one of these guys who thinks they've "made it" which causes them to doubledown on the obnoxiousness.
Surely it is also highly inappropriate and unhelpful for 'well-meaning and responsible citizens' to start taking it up with the minimum wage blokes contracted to put the hangars in place...?
Contacting the forces of law n order is not the greatest of threatening threats, is it now?
Nominative determinism. Allcock is deliberately morphing call police “if there was any trouble” into the wholely different call to the police when they question how council services are being implemented in their neighbourhood. These are two entirely different scenarios.