Dockless cycle hire in the City of London

If you have a concern about the way that dockless bikes are being parked or used, please report it by using the City Corporation's dedicated webform City Corporation reporting webform. Reports submitted this way are immediately forwarded to the relevant operator. This is the quickest and most efficient way to raise an issue.

You can report the location, the bike's unique ID number and the reason for reporting it on the webform.

Please note that the City Corporation has limited powers to address complaints regarding dockless bikes.

Please contact the Transport Strategy Team if your issue relates to a designated dockless bike hire parking bay.

Two dockless cycle hire operators serve the City of London: Lime and  Forest. Their bikes can be located, hired and unlocked using a smartphone app and may be ridden and parked in the City.

Cycles hired from any other dockless operator in London can be ridden through the City, but you cannot end a journey.

Dockless cycles must be parked in designated parking areas which are clearly marked on-street and shown in Lime and Forest's apps. 

If you park or abandon a dockless bike outside of a designated parking area, you may be warned, fined and then banned for persistent misuse. Operators issue additional charges and penalties for bikes that:

• Obstruct the pavement, especially on narrow pavements or in areas with high footfall
• Are parked on carriageway (unless in a designated bay)
• Are parked on or near a crossing or dropped kerb
• Are parked in front of doors or entryways
• Block a fire escapes or are parked in fire evacuation assembly points
• Are parked in a disabled parking space, car parking space or a loading bays
• On City of London highwalks and walkways

Dockless cycle hire schemes are not covered by legislation, so the City of London Corporation does not have the legal power to prevent dockless cycle hire schemes from operating in the City. Nor does the City Corporation have the legal power to compel operators to operate their schemes in accordance with City Corporation policies or standards.

We do, however, have a Memorandum of Understanding with Lime and Forest. This holds them to certain standards of performance including a service level agreement for the removal of bikes causing an obstruction or clearly parked outside a bay within 90 minutes during peak hours (Monday – Friday, 6am – 9pm) and within 4 hours during off-peak hours.

Dockless cycles differ from rental e-scooters, which are regulated as part of the ongoing e-scooter trial with the Department for Transport (DfT) and Transport for London (TfL).

The City Corporation has provided dedicated on-street parking bays for dockless cycles and has insisted that operators ensure their users end their journeys in these bays to minimise the impact of inappropriate parking.

These parking bays have been designated following a design and review process, which included road safety audits, site visits, local engagement and equalities impact assessments, to ensure they do not negatively impact other street users.

While the City Corporation provides these spaces, it has no legal power to require that operators use these spaces as part of their hire schemes. It is however a core requirement of the Memorandum of Understanding that operators remind their users to adhere to mandatory parking bays, and issue warnings and fines if bikes are parked outside of bays.

The City Corporation engages with dockless cycle hire operators to insist they improve their schemes. Officers have laid out a series of short, medium and long-term actions for improving dockless bike hire operations in the City. More information on these actions, and on dockless bike policy, can be found in the approved Streets and Walkways Committee Report (January 2024).

The City Corporation has powers to enforce against obstructions on the streets and pavements. Highways Act 1980: 

• Section 137 offences related to obstruction created by people
• Section 148(c) offences related to obstructions created by anything deposited on the highway
• Section 149 offences related to dangers created by anything deposited on the highway

The City Corporation is currently trialling issuing Fixed Penalty Notices to operators if they do not remove bikes that we have reported to them. This enforcement aims to improve compliance with requirement for dockless bikes to only be left in designated parking areas.

Consideration has been given as to whether the provision of dockless cycle hire is covered by local legislation making it unlawful for any person to engage in unauthorised street trading in the City.

Street trading is defined in the City of London (Various Powers) Act 1987 to mean the selling or exposing or offering for sale of any article or thing in a street. However, dockless cycle hire schemes involve cycles being available on the highway (or on private land with the consent of the owner) for temporary hire by the public, with payment being made via an App and no person in the street is engaged in their hire.

As the 1987 Act prohibits a person from selling items in the street, not the temporary hiring of bikes via an App, which is more in the nature of a service (and not dissimilar to the existing Santander cycle hire scheme except that there are no docking stations), the activity would not be considered unauthorised street trading.

It is considered that the definitions of waste or litter are not intended to cover bikes left temporarily on the highway and which are in use for the benefit of the operators and their customers and officers do not know of any decisions on this point.

Our approach to enforcing against inappropriately parked dockless cycles consists of reporting issues and incidents directly to operators and, if possible, immediately moving or relocating bikes to appropriate locations. We do not undertake significant legal enforcement action against dockless cycle hire operators. 

City Corporation staff are unable to unlock dockless bikes but, if safe to do so and not presenting a manual handling risk, they will attempt to lift bikes (which can weigh up to 20kg and need two people to move safely) and move them to the nearest safe location. These bikes are reported immediately to the responsible operator.

City Corporation staff report thousands of inappropriately parked cycles each year.

If passed into primary legislation the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill will give TfL the power to regulate dockless cycle hire. This will allow enforcement of parking compliance and fleet size across the City of London and all London boroughs. As of February 2026, the Bill is progressing through Parliament and is at the committee stage in the House of Lords. It is expected to gain Royal Assent in the coming months. 

Secondary legislation on the detailed licencing requirements for future operators is expected to be in place in the next 12-18 months. For more information, please visit the Government’s website on the Bill’s progress.