Crackdown on rogue riders in Hartlepool showing signs of success as more bikes seized

Hartlepool Borough Council officers said complaints had been received over the past few months and they have been working with police to take action.

Officers highlighted two types of bikers, those who are ‘naive’ to the rules and those causing ‘nuisance and anti-social behaviour’.

Action taken includes new signs being put up, while four bikes were recently seized, adding to a previous eight taken off road, with the help of Cleveland Police’s Operation Endurance.

Phil Hepburn, council environmental enforcement team leader, provided the update to Hartlepool North and Coastal Community Forum.

He said: “Off road bikes have been a plague across the town really, all sorts of different areas.

“They fall into two different categories, there are sorts of naive and serious bikers who are unaware of the legal obligation and prohibition to use public land and space.

“The response to that has been our educational side of it by trying to make them aware of that.

“We’ve made visits to the sites that they use and we’ve got new sign-age going up to try and make people more aware and advising them it’s an issue and they shouldn’t be there.

“You’ve got your second group which tend to be your anti-social behaviour and your nuisance riders, and we were lucky to be able to secure the police bike team in Hartlepool for Operation Endurance.

“There was success from that, we actually seized four vehicles as a direct result of that operation in the Hartlepool area.

“When you think about the work we’d done before that, we’d taken 8 vehicles prior to this operation.”

He added most of the success is based on intelligence from residents and added it is important for authorities to identify where bikes are stored.

It was highlighted ‘Operation Endurance’ continues to be carried out, although the increased focus in Hartlepool was geared around the school holidays where they often see a spike.

Council officers added police have a section on their website called ‘bike watch’ which allows residents to upload photos of nuisance bikers in a bid to catch them.

Residents are also urged to continue to report instances of nuisance bikers to Cleveland Police on 101 or to Hartlepool Community Safety Team on 01429 523100 or email [email protected].