The Green Opposition Group on Richmond Council is critical of the decision to move from one monopoly provider of e-bikes in the borough to another.
At the Transport and Air Quality Committee meeting on Monday 16 March, the Liberal Democrat Councillors voted as a block to kick out Lime and switch to Forest. Only Councillor Andrée Frieze, Leader of the Opposition, voted against it and spoke out in favour of having two operators.
Cllr Frieze says: “Two e-bike companies provide more choice for residents, resilience against operator failure and better connectivity across the whole of London. Simply swapping one monopoly for another does not improve the service overall for Richmond residents.
“Further, I am concerned that the need to prop up Council funding in the face of massive cuts from Government played too great a decision in this vote. The concession that Forest will pay as a single operator is about 1.7 times more than having two operators. For Forest versus Lime as single operators, it is 2.25 times as much.”
The map shows the current situation for e-bike services across London. Once the new contracts are in place, residents will continue to be able to cycle via e-bikes into all the neighbouring boroughs with the addition of Kingston, which they are currently unable to. But, who knows what other boroughs will do in the future. Maybe Kingston will swap to Lime and then Richmond residents will go back to being restricted by ‘checkpoint Charlie’. Until a pan-London agreement is in place for the e-bike operators, Londoners will continue to be at the mercy of individual borough decisions over which operator(s) are appointed.
