Antisocial Behaviour and Off-road Bikes

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing the debate and I thank him for it.

I have always been of the opinion that politics is local. The issues that we discuss here are of so much significance to our constituents because they affect them. Like others who have spoken, I have an inbox full of messages from constituents who are concerned about our focus today, which is an extremely damaging issue for our communities. In Skelmersdale, in my West Lancashire constituency, residents are contacting me to report bikes tearing up and down estates at all hours of the day and night, terrorising local people at speeds of up to 50 mph. Local residents report that they hear the bikes coming before they can see them, with the noise carrying on for hours at a time, three to four times a week.

Much more troubling is residents’ concern about their safety as a result of that behaviour. My constituents are telling their children not to play out in the street—the place where they live—for fear of the bikes, and residents have described the activity in the local press as

“an accident waiting to happen”,

yet they dare not report the issue to the police for fear of retaliatory crime.

A simple online search will bring up reports of residents who complain about being targeted with attacks on their properties and, in the worst instances, arson. Good, honest and hard-working people are having their lives blighted by the reckless and selfish actions of those on bikes. Also, as perpetrators come and go at all hours of the day, it is hard for the police to react when offences occur. Even if the police are quick enough to react, a potential chase through residential streets poses further danger to local residents. It has reached the point where Lancashire police are now working with the Labour West Lancashire Borough Council to impose public spaces protection orders to try to get to grips with the ongoing nuisance, yet more concerning is the link between off-road bikes and organised crime, such as the distribution of drugs, which bring with them a whole raft of other antisocial behaviours and yet more illegal activities.

Reports of such vehicles being used to ferry illegal substances around communities and distribute drugs are widespread. Evidence of the link between bikes and drugs has been found right across the country, from Stockton, which the hon. Member who led the debate represents, to Glasgow, Manchester, Preston and Leicester. In fact, the issue has become so problematic in Leicester that the east midlands special operations unit has been established and tasked to address the problem.

I am not suggesting that all off-road bike-users are dealing drugs, and nor am I saying that to eliminate the issue of antisocial behaviour and bike use would be a silver bullet in eradicating drug crime, but it would certainly help to address the issue and provide some respite for my constituents, who are suffering due to noise, fear and the risk to their safety. The impact of antisocial behaviour is so far reaching, and I hear about it so much from my constituents, that I felt compelled to raise it with the Lancashire police and crime commissioner, Andrew Snowden, when I met him yesterday.

New technologies offer alternative ways to begin to address the problem. West Midlands police and Hampshire police, for instance, have both used drones to identify offenders and get more accurate descriptions than local residents can offer. While the success of such an approach, like others, needs to be assessed before it is more widely considered, it might well take a fresh approach really to deal with the issue.

What concerns me most is the lack of accessible support to the victims of antisocial behaviour. Tackling the problem and dealing with the perpetrators are, understandably, often the focus of attention, but to be a victim of antisocial behaviour can be incredibly isolating and distressing. That is why I support calls from Opposition Front Benchers to focus more on neighbourhood policing, with an additional 3,000 officers and police community support officers who are rooted in communities.

At a time when confidence in the police is waning, having a regular, familiar police presence in our communities would go some distance to restore and rebuild trust, as well as acting as a deterrent against antisocial behaviours. For my constituents in West Lancashire, antisocial behaviour and the menace of off-road bikes is a daily torment. I am committed to working with the police and crime commissioner, local police, local councillors, colleagues in this House and, most importantly, the communities of West Lancashire to ensure that the issue is taken seriously, and that people can once again feel safe in their neighbourhoods.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

The debate will need to end at eight minutes past 9. If the Minister is so minded, he might allow the mover of the motion a couple of minutes to wind up. I call the shadow Minister.