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news
Track pump outside Isambard's Cycles (via Twitter).jpgCouncil fines London bike shop that provided free pump for cyclists
A London council has fined a bike shop for placing a track pump on the pavement outside to enable cyclists to fill their tyres with air.
Officials from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets fined Shoreditch bike shop Isambard’s Cycles £100 for placing a bench outside the shop with the pump attached, reports the London Evening Standard.
The shop’s owners, Sarah Breese and Timothy James, removed the bench but left the pump there, prompting a return visit from a council enforcement officer who threatened them with a further fine unless they took it away or obtained a licence.
@TowerHamletsNow are fining us for having this free pump outside for cyclists to use. As of next week it will no longer be available #RT pic.twitter.com/SdLB1CN9JN
— ISAMBARD'S CYCLES (@isambardscycles) July 30, 2017
Ms Breese told the newspaper: “The council’s attitude to small business is that of a feudal lord to a tenant farmer. This fine is the tip of the iceberg but totally in keeping with their broader approach.
“We’re a community bike shop. We keep bikes on the road affordably for thousands of local residents. We try to price people into cycling.
“It’s increasingly difficult for us to survive with the council behaving in this way though.
“Yesterday, the same enforcement officer who fined us the first time was taking pictures of our shop and when we asked what he was doing he said we needed to obtain a licence to be able to have the pump there, otherwise we would be fined.
“We’re still not sure what the issue with the bench is either - the pavement is wide, it's a corner shop and that road is very quiet. The bench gives us no commercial gain,” she added.
A council spokesman said: “Isambard’s Cycles has not been fined for having a ‘free foot pump’.
“We visited the shop on July 16 to tell them that they need to apply for a licence to have items on the footpath outside their shop including bicycles for sale and a bench. This was followed up with a letter.
“The area outside the shop is narrow and it is already difficult to get a pram or a wheelchair past the shop, without these items being displayed.
“A week later they had still not applied for a licence so we issued a fine for having goods on the highway. We then visited again last weekend and they still had not applied for a licence so we said that we would fine them again.”
He added: “We will visit the shop for a fourth time this week to offer help in applying for a licence and, if they do, we can review the latest fine.”
Recently, the council was in the news for another fine, imposed on a girl aged five and her father who had set up a stall outside their Mile End home to sell lemonade to people on their way to the Lovebox festival in Victoria Park.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/fiveyearold-girl-bursts-into-tears...
Tower Hamlets there, fresh from their triumph making the girl with her lemonade stall cry https://t.co/iO2uIHt7Qm
— Jane Merrick (@janemerrick23) July 31, 2017
News of the fine emerged on the same weekend that more than 28,000 cyclists passed through Tower Hamlets during yesterday’s Prudential RideLondon-Surrey sportive, which started at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in neighbouring Newham.
@SadiqKhan @RideLondon amazing. One day after the greatest of cycling events inspiring a generation and driving health, the exact opposite
— Jonathan Wood (@sparrowhawkway) July 31, 2017
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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33 comments
"a bollard that can double as a bicycle pump."
This, I want to see.
Back in the '90s, I was impressed by a bike shop near Central Park in New York that just had an airline through the wall, so that passing cyclists could inflate their tyres. This is the first time I've come across a UK bike shop with a similar facility. So I say good for them, but I'd also like to know why they haven't applied for a licence.
As for pavement parking, I've lived for a couple of decades in Tower Hamlets and was pleased to see how many pavements are protected with cast (aluminium?) bollards and street corners protected with bell shaped castings. Rare instances of pavement parking seemed to get ticketed quickly. As a visitor nowadays, I see that the bollards are still there, but I don't know if pavement parking is ticketed with the same vigour and I'm disappointed to see that the parking enforcement vehicles are often parked illegally and need ticketing themselves! Let's hope that enough complaints will make Tower Hamlets pull its socks up.
I've seen less drama in Pumpton...I mean Trumpton....
[UPDATE]
https://twitter.com/TowerHamletsNow/status/892325510692442112
We visited Isambard’s Cycles this morning to make clear that there is no issue with having a pump outside the shop. We both agreed to... move it away from a lamppost so there was space for the public to get past when people are using it. We have also offered to... install a bollard that can double as a bicycle pump. While, by law, we have to ensure pavements are clear and safe for pedestrians, ... it is also very important to support our local businesses.
Result for the fucking hipsters.
But most councils don't ensure pavements are clear and safe for pedestrians. Most councils seem more than happy for pedestrians to negotiate a slalom of a-boards and pavement-parked white vans.
Most councils have some sort of online form you can fill in to report obstructions. People underestimate the sheer amount of roads the council has to inspect with a small, underfunded staff.
I've never known stuff I've actually reported to our local council not get sorted. I've reported potholes, flytipping and overhanging trees/hedges. They all have procedures in place to deal with these things once they know about them, but if you're relying on their inspectors to find them then you'll be waiting for some time.
The street sign leaves about 90cm to get a wheelchair past... Unfortunately the unfortunate wheelchair user will then get stuck between the car and the neighbours steps...
Well done Tower Hamlets!
If councils are so short of money, how can they afford to pay people to do these sorts of non-jobs?
Might I humbly suggest they re-train as towerblock fire safety inspectors?
Other more sensible councils install bike pumps and repair stations across their boroughs. Bike pumps like the one in the link below
http://www.cyclehoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Public-Bike-Pump1.jpg
The bikes for sale were definitely obstructing the pavement, but the bench and pump look like they leave a good 1.5m of pavement left which is far wider than many pavements in small market towns.
Sounds to me, like the council just want to moan and/or raise some extra money.
It looks like he's moved the bikes from the side of the shop and put the pump there (if you look at the photos of the pump that were on twitter you'll see that the concrete pattern matches the but by the street sign on the side road)
I don't think this is an important issue. Storm in a tea-cup. Leave the pump just inside the door. The council has a valid point.
However, the streets near where I live (elsewhere in London) are _full_ of pavement-parked vehicles from one end to the other. Most with official consent, but of course when consent is given in one place it invariably spreads to the entire road and spills out of the official bays.
There is of course insufficient pavement space left for a wheelchair or for two people side-by-side, for pretty much the whole length of the street, so you have to walk in the road, even though vehicles do 40mph on it. But the authorities don't care because the residents desire to not walk more than 2 yards to their car trumps every other consideration.
Saw this on twitter yesterday and automatically sided with the bike shop for trying to offer a free service to the cycling community.
But have to admit that the council do have a point, keep the pump inside the door so it doesn't cause an unneccesary obstacle for people.
Looks like very little room on the pavement between bikes and lampost.
As for the hipster element...well yes. Add in the pictures in wellies in the countryside and it's all a bit confusing. Are they urban cool or country gentry? Fixies certainly aren't for rolling hills.
All change on the support front, I hadn't realised they were fucking hipsters.
You can see it on streetview here: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5258792,-0.0719854,3a,75y,137.82h,68.88t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYuiQ7bzk799hvkRxZWZy3Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Note the lighter shade of concrete that lines up with where this pump is. With the street sign there that pump is definitely causing an obstruction.
Here's another photo I found: https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/111945238652825765996/photos/@51.5258197,-0.071922,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m7!1e2!3m5!1s-VN6Pxy_gEu8%2FWXjTOghxPpI%2FAAAAAAAAAM4%2FSdE7kzz0674G4oAcJvNM0lUsDRHsAUjCwCLIBGAYYCw!2e4!6s%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-VN6Pxy_gEu8%2FWXjTOghxPpI%2FAAAAAAAAAM4%2FSdE7kzz0674G4oAcJvNM0lUsDRHsAUjCwCLIBGAYYCw%2Fw203-h100-p-k-no%2F!7i1000!8i564!4m3!8m2!3m1!1e1
Notice the bike racks down the side of the shop (that's where the pump now appears to be in the photo from the paper). Those are clearly blocking the whole footway, so I think there's a bit of a case of going whinging to the papers because he's been asked not to do something and then fined for continuing to do it.
Yes, looking at the twitter picture and comparing to the Google streetview, I have to say that's a stupid place to leave the pump. Right opposite the council's own road sign post (which seems excessively obstructive too - the sign on the back is significantly lower than doorway height and is perfect for cutting your head on!) making the pavement impossible for wheelchair or pushchair users to negotiate, and probably unecessarily difficult for people with impaired sight too.
I'm all for them being able to leave a pump outside for people to use, but they would be much better off leaving it round the front of the shop, as per the other photo.
As much as the council clearly have a problem with jobsworths (eg the lemonade stall nonsense) I think they have a point about blocking the pavement in the side road, even if the pavement does stop after 50 yards. They should sort out the sign post if they haven't already though. And they should sort out the pavement parking in the area.
I wonder whether the previous two occupants of the property had a licence for the tables, chairs and benches they left outside (visible in Google Streetview) since at least 2008?
Said he was flouncing, then actually flounced, in an internet first.
Bloody Tories, oppressing the people......oh....it's Labour. Still the Tories fault, brexit etc.
Oppressing whitey stuff, like quirky bike shops and kids selling lemonade, is fine, because whitey can't be oppressed, or something.
I wish unconstituted was still around to tell me how wrong that is...
What happened to him?
I know a couple of local councillers and effective enforcement of local byelaws can be a big part of their "post bag" (and they have dealt with a recent rise in pavement parking ) and those byelaws here include controlling what shops put on the pavement. In order to keep the costs of enforcement down they ask for payment to issue a licence and fine those who disobey. I think they were heavy handed with the 5 year old which they admitted but if they do require other businesses to pay for the licence then it would be unfair on those who pay to let the bike shop off.
When councils are having their money cut by the government they have to raise it by some other means... I don't agree with this but it is what is happening.
Fine people for parking in cycle lanes, they'll be rolling in money very quickly, and/or clear the cycle lanes.
It is already difficult to get a pram or a wheelchair past the shop
I'd agree with others on here as to the above. Given the fact many cars spend more time parked up on pavements than actually being driven anywhere can we expect Tower Hamlets Council to adopt a similarly aggressive attack on pavement parking?
I'd presume not, war on motorists and all that
So all those shops and cafes that block half the width of pavements on most high streets in the country with A-frame signs have been granted licences to do so? Or does advertising not count as "goods"?
It'll be a local byelaw. Cambridge are bringing in regulations to limit A-frame signs very strictly, and they already require any cafés and restraunts that want seating outside that isn't on their premises to have a pavement licence.
There's a fair push on at the moment to reduce pavement clutter, and disability groups, especially those that represent the blind and partially sighted, do have pavement paking in their sights as a target to remove.
yes there is such a thing as an 'A' board license you need to put such things on the pavement, or be fined, and there are rules on the sizes of adverts and banners, its down to the local council how they choose to enforce them or not.
Around Melbourne, Aus, the councils all enforce their A-frame sign laws about pavement advertising. The immediate result has been that businesses grab the cheapest unrideable piece of junk bikes that they can find, pop-rivet signs on either side of them and then permanently lock them to trees, poles or bike racks and use the loop hole that this is "a bicycle" and not "an advertisement". End result is even more obstruction on the footpaths and even fewer of the scarce bike racks available for bike riders to use
or you could just use common sense but that went out of fashion a long time ago.
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