Council to install CCTV cameras worth over £40,000 on cycle path to "combat anti-social behaviour"

The Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council has announced that it will be investing more than £40,000 to install CCTV cameras at an upgraded Teesside cycle route in a bid to deter anti-social behaviour.

The council completed improvement work last autumn on a two mile-section of Black Path between Harcourt Road in South Bank and Ormesby High Street, also known locally as The Lines.

These have included a new, widened sealed tarmac surface, embedded ‘solar eye’ lighting, the clearing of overgrown vegetation to make the area feel brighter and less enclosed.

In 2022, £665,000 was granted to the council by the active travel charity Sustrans, which oversees the National Cycle Network and administers awards from the Department of Transport, with these upgrades coming as a part of action on the funding.

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The works also included replacing restrictor barriers with chicanes compliant with cycle and active travel infrastructure guidance issued to local authorities, to make it more accessible for wheelchair users, along with the likes of mobility scooters and people with pushchairs, Teeside Live reports.

Now, after a report to the local authority revealed continuing nuisance behaviour by riders of scrambler motorbikes and quad bikes, a total of £40,550 has now been signed off for six new CCTV cameras and associated equipment, set to be installed by September.

A delegated decision report explaining the investment said: “Despite support for the new look route, concern remains about the level of anti-social behaviour using scrambler motorbikes and quad [bikes], which has seen parts of the path damaged.

"This activity is now more visible due to the greater public presence along the route."

The report added that camera masts on the route would have to be fitted in locations with good visibility, while affording privacy for adjacent houses.

> “Benefit of removing barriers far outweighs anti-social motorbike behaviour”: Cyclist calls for removal of barriers from cycle paths for greater accessibility

Regarding the upgrade works, Philip Chisholm, who rides an adapted cycle to help disabled friends and family, said: "The Lines is amazing now. It’s wonderful for disabled carriages or even a very long bike, and a 100% improvement on what it was before.

“The old track was muddy with lots of barriers. You’d come off it with a filthy bike and filthy clothes. Now it’s lovely and smooth tarmac, there are access points all the way along, and it’s three times the width.

"I've ridden a bike since I was a little boy. I’m now 70. This feels like cycle routes are moving with the times for all age groups."

In the past, Hamish Belding, a Project Officer at cycling, walking and wheeling charity Sustrans, had told road.cc about how removal of inaccessible gates can serve the community and help more people cycle. He had also said that councils often challenged the removal of barriers based on the perception that they are there to stop illegal motorbike or moped use, a view that is also echoed on social media by opponents.

He said: “Illegal motorbike use is a perception, there’s a lot of fear-mongering around it which may not actually reflect reality. Often the barriers are put in as an automatic sort of thing when paths are built and not in recognition of whether there's a problem or not. I know this area very well. I know that we don't have a motorbike problem here and the benefit of removing the barrier far outweighs any risk of anti-social motorbike behaviour.

Last year, cyclists had blasted Stoke Newington Police after its social media account shared a photograph of an officer issuing a fine to a woman with a child seat on her bike for riding on the pavement, as part of its operation to tackle “cycling related anti-social behaviour”.

Meanwhile, anti-social behaviour has also come to spotlight in a number of cases where the council has used the infamous Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) to impose fines on cyclists.

Earlier this month, Grismby, perhaps the town council whose name is most frequently associated with PSPO, was back in the spotlight after two cyclists were fined over £500 for riding their bikes through the town centre, prompting a councillor to claim that the cyclists were “rightly punished” and that the local authority “will not simply look the other way” when it comes to people breaching the PSPO.

And more recently, we reported that “rogue” wardens working for the Colchester City Council had been accused of “lying in wait” to catch cyclists riding on the pavement, after two riders were recently fined £100 for briefly mounting a footpath to avoid navigating a notoriously busy roundabout and its “thick and fast motor traffic”, a penalty described by one of the cyclists involved as “unjustified” and “a bit farcical”.