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Local police chief Sir Graham Bright has told local paper Cambridge News that cycle theft is ‘out of control’ in the city.
Pinpointing hotspots like Cambridge railway station, Sir Graham said he was in talks with the City Council to tackle the menace.
"I have got some other things I am working on, particularly bike theft, and what we’re going to do to drive down that and stop the thefts," Sir Paul told the local paper. "I think we’ve got to get that under control because it’s gotten out of hand."
‘Trap bikes’, using GPS trackers have been employed by the local police force in an effort to drive down cycle theft, a tactic that appears to have been working with cycle theft down to 2,393 in April 2011 to March 2012, so says Cambridge News (which pinpoints other local theft hotspots here).
In the long term, plans for ‘the biggest cycle parking facility in the UK‘ are being plotted for Cambridge railway station, including free bike parking, with a premium parking option available (there’s a mock-up video of the multi-story cycle park with the story here).
Speaking of GPS anti-theft devices for cyclists, this tracker is commercially available to consumers.
Recent census data has identified that Cambridge is the city with the most people who cycle to work.
One Twitter user pointed out to BikeBiz that cycle parking has been poor in the city and often woefully inadequate for the high levels of cycling, pointing to the example of King Street which took seven years to establish a comparatively small 12-place bike rack.
