Peter Swallow
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Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) for securing this important debate.
My local councillor colleagues and I have received numerous complaints about off-road bikes endangering public safety in Bracknell Forest. They include reports of young men in balaclavas, with no lights or helmets, driving recklessly on footpaths and cycle ways and nearly crashing into individuals and families as they go about their daily lives—walking their dogs, doing their shopping, picking up their children from school or simply enjoying a walk around our lovely town.
These bikes are a public nuisance, and they have substantive, detrimental effect on the ability of people in Bracknell Forest to go about their lives and feel safe in our wonderful community. One constituent reported that an off-road bike driver almost crashed into them and their five-year-old child. Another wrote to us about almost being hit by a group of young men, who then drove off laughing. In the Chamber back in November, I raised the concerns of one resident who has been kept up at night by the noise from the bikes.
We have also received numerous complaints about the same groups of young men grouping around neighbourhoods in Bracknell during the evenings and late afternoons. One parent reported to a councillor colleague their concern at consistently seeing groups of young men with covered faces on e-bikes, hanging around a local school when they pick up their son. However innocent those young drivers may be, they are intimidating to residents, and we need to act on this issue.
It is clear that these bikes, and the antisocial behaviour associated with them, have an impact on the feeling of our community and of communities across the country. That is why I am delighted that the Crime and Policing Bill will bring in concrete measures to address the issue. It will ensure that the police and local authorities no longer need to issue advance warnings to seize off-road bikes related to repeated antisocial behaviour, and it will introduce tough new respect orders so that police and councils can ban hoodlums from hanging around specific areas, such as town centres.
We must get the police on the streets to enforce those measures, which is why it is so important that the Government are committed to 13,000 additional police officers on Britain’s streets, along with a named, contactable officer in every community. That is fantastic news for Bracknell and for the country. The Government are committed to delivering on their safer streets mission, and a huge part of that will be crushing the bikes.