Britain's biggest FREE bike newspaper

Rail against the system

The two-wheeled community in Edinburgh is having very similar problems to Westminster. The city of Edinburgh council has decided in its infinite wisdom to make solo motorcycle parking bays dual purpose in the centre street parking area in George Street. They have now allowed cars to park in the bays and also removed the railing to lock bikes onto, turning it into a free-for-all for bike thieves and car drivers who knock over parked bikes because ‘they didn’t see them’.

This is an appalling mistake and we need as many bikers as possible to turn up and occupy the car spaces in George Street on the last Friday of every month until common sense prevails (between 3.30pm onwards till about 6.30pm). We purchase a ticket to occupy the space and then photograph the bike and ticket together.

We can hopefully then use the pictures to show the council and try to persuade them to change their bad decision back to the normal safer parking environment we have had previously.

As you can tell, I am passionate about our community and removing railings to lock your bike to is just unjustifiable and dangerous.

Adrian Graham
via email

As your story proves, unfortunately chargeable/ shared bike parking looks set to become a permanent fixture in some major cities if the Westminster scheme is then rolled out.