Our consultation response for the city centre cycling PSPO

Filed under: Consultation

This is our response to a consultation to introduce a public space protection order on cycling in parts of the city centre. If you support our comments, please respond to the consultation and link to our response. The consultation closes on 31 January 2025.

Better Streets for Birmingham is a group that advocates infrastructural changes in our city to enable car-free journeys. This involves making all our streets safe for walking, wheeling, and cycling, and prioritising public transport.

We fully appreciate that modified electric motorbikes are dangerous. We also respect the Council’s right to consult.

We are writing to object to the proposed Public Space Protection Order on the basis that:

• It duplicates primary legislation which can be enforced as evidenced in the Council’s supporting documents
• It would contravene the Birmingham Transport Plan and City Centre Movement and Access Strategy
• Much of the PSPO area will become shared ‘share with care’ paths under capital projects with approved full business cases
• There is a lack of separated cycle lanes in the city centre providing an alternative
• The loose definitions in the PSPO could create unintended consequences such as biases and putting people off active travel

In our response we will detail the context for the PSPO and then outline our concerns.

Context

The Council is proposing to introduce a new Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) to restrict “dangerous, careless or inconsiderate” riding of different types of vehicles.

Evolution of the proposals

We are pleased that the proposals have been significantly revised since being presented to Councillor Brennan on 8 October 2024.

We issued a widely-reported public statement criticising the proposals as clumsy and unworkable. Clumsy because of the breadth of the measures being discussed and unintended consequences that had clearly not been considered, and unworkable because of the limited enforceability of people riding illegal motorbikes at speed.

The use of a PSPO continues to appear as an easy sticking plaster in order to say that the Council is doing something, rather than addressing root problems for meaningful change.

Infrastructure in the city centre

In December 2024, West Midlands Combined Authority approved a full business case to refresh the public realm between Victoria Square and Corporation Street, including Ethel Street, Temple Street and (Lower) Bennetts Hill. This delivers plans previously consulted on in 2023, which includes new cycle connectivity between Stephenson Street and Temple Row. The full business case also states that these streets will be shared spaces for both cycling and walking, installing more cycle parking.

There are several cycle routes that exist across the city centre, however they are only starting to be combined into a series of through-routes, for example the proposed A34 to A38 link via Moor Street Gateway. The Council’s pace of delivery means this is unlikely to reach a critical momentum for several years yet.

As part of the Birmingham Transport Plan, the city centre core is supposed to become a series of shared spaces, allowing pedestrians and cyclists to travel between all of the City Centre Traffic Management and Access areas.

The city centre core is home to a growing number of office buildings with high specification cycle facilities. Given the lack of through-routes, it is necessary to take a route using the streets in the scope of the PSPO for the last mile of the journey.

Existing legislation

As the supporting documents acknowledge, there is a longstanding legal framework for e-cycles, dictating the weight, voltage and assistance cut-off. For example, legal e-cycles cannot propel the cycle when travelling at more than 15 miles per hour.

Where a cycle has been modified beyond it, it is an illegal vehicle and if the Department for Transport were to type approve most of these vehicles, they would become electric motorcycles, requiring a driving licence, number plates, vehicle excise duty and motor insurance.

Several of the areas included in the PSPO are pedestrian and cycle zones, some parts are only pedestrian zones. In both of these zones, motor vehicles including electric motorcycles are prohibited. This is controlled through Traffic Regulation Orders. Cycling in pedestrian zones has become tolerated given the Council has repeatedly rejected requests for separated cycle lanes as part of changes to the urban realm, stating that the city centre will be shared paths instead.

Both the e-cycle regulatory framework and traffic regulation orders mean that most cycles the PSPO seeks to curb use of are already illegal and enforceable by Police.

LTN1/20 is cycling infrastructure design statutory guidance and states that shared use paths should only be considered as a last resort, instead preferring separated routes. LTN1/20 6.5.9 states “Research shows that cyclists alter their behaviour according to the density of pedestrians – as pedestrian flows rise, cyclists tend to ride more slowly and where they become very high cyclists typically dismount.”

Equalities

Disabled cyclists use their cycle as a mobility aid and cannot easily dismount to ‘walk alongside’. Any ban would discriminate against these people, contrary to the Equality Act 2010, and would therefore be inappropriate.

Our response

We believe that the proposed PSPO continues to be a blunt tool despite it being watered down. Better outcomes could be achieved through a programme of intervention days, introducing a “share with care” approach, and engaging with delivery platforms.

Poor definition and understanding of illegal vehicles

The Council often refer to e-cycles when they are referring to illegally modified cycles or e-motorcycles. We are not confident that, given the Council gets this confused,  any enforcement agents would be able to clearly make this distinction.

Contradictory drafting

Legal public hire e-scooters would not meet the condition of complying with the legislation required by the order. Particularly breaching Regulation 4(b) of The Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycles Regulations 1983 where it would be required to be a cycle with pedals.

Behaviours can already be dealt with under existing legislation

There are already several pieces of legislation that the Police and Council can use to remove dangerous illegally modified vehicles from the road, as demonstrated by the ‘intervention days’ described as successful in section two of the supporting documentation.

There is no explanation of why a PSPO would be more beneficial than holding further enforcement actions and intervention days. The suggestion that there is concern that people riding or cycling dangerously might find alternative routes is odd given the specific geographical restriction of the PSPO.

Delivery couriers are a key target yet there is no demonstrable engagement with courier platforms

Delivery riders using illegal electric motorbikes are a significant number of observed anti-social behaviours. They deliver for platforms and are incentivised to deliver as many orders as quickly as possible. This also leads to poor behaviour displayed by those cycling and driving to deliver orders across the city.

The supporting documentation does not give any reassurance that the Council is tackling this at the source of the problem, despite this being a key action in the new West Midlands Road Safety Action Plan. No evidence has been provided, even upon request, that the Council has formally engaged with any platforms.

There are other levers that the Council is not using, such as placing licensing conditions on the type of outbound deliveries permitted and by which vehicles, which could allow for easier and more targeted enforcement.

Vague definitions within the PSPO could lead to confusion and biases

Behaviours defined in the PSPO are vague and open to interpretation by people enforcing it. For example, slow and considerate cycling would be permitted but fast and dangerous cycling would be prohibited.

The lack of absolute definition could lead to those who are unable to dismount from their cycles being put off from using the area as they do not want to risk being fined. Research by Wheels For Wellbeing found in 2019 that three-quarters of disabled cyclists use their cycle as a mobility aid and are unable to dismount and walk.

We are concerned that the PSPO’s drafting could lead to biases in enforcement. Whereas existing primary legislation provides clear definitions which have already been enforced during enforcement activities.

The definitions could also prove difficult for both the Council and anybody appealing a fixed penalty notice. For example, what constitutes “aggressive riding” and what speed is “riding at speed”?

This has been a major issue in Colchester City Council, where the Council recently repealed 8 in 10 of fines issued under a similarly vague PSPO, which also saw enforcement officers issuing penalties on shared paths, which are similar infrastructure to pedestrian-cycle zones which exist in the area of the proposed PSPO.

Conclusion

While we fully appreciate the need to guarantee pedestrian safety, we oppose this PSPO for the reasons outlined above and believe that the PSPO’s objectives can be achieved without using this particular regulatory device.

Appendix – Cycling PSPOs in other authorities

We sent a number of requests to other local authorities with cycling PSPOs. There is a mixed picture across the country for how the PSPO has been enforced. One authority was keen to point out that they educate in joint operations with the Police before issuing penalties.

We are awaiting one FOI response from North East Lincolnshire Council which has a timed ban duplicating a traffic regulation order.

Council	Type of cycling ban	Penalties issued
Breckland Council	Causing damage, nuisance or annoyance within an area	0
Bedford Borough Council	Timed ban in city centre	815 – November 2023 to October 2024
Coventry City Council	Must ride in a careful and considerate manner	0
Peterborough City Council	Causing harassment, alarm or distress	330 – January to September 2024
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead	Outright ban in two pedestrianised areas	0
Dacorum Borough Council	Outright ban	229 – November 2023 to October 2024
Southend-on-Sea City Council	Likely to pose risk to the health of safety of pedestrians	31 since 2022, response caveated with use of education and warning before enforcing, along with joint Police operations
Worcester City Council	Outright ban (PSPO now ended)	0 during life of PSPO
Canterbury City Council	Ban on anti-social riding from delivery riders	0