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Above: The police were in the town centre for over an hour sitting in their car. Numerous bikes road past, but they did nothing but keep warm.
On the 16th of April 2016, I received a response from Barry Chandler, Neighbourhood Policing Team Sergeant, to an email I had sent detailing some of the problems I have had with cyclists and the issues I think need to be dealt with.
I have read your email to the police and I am sorry to hear that you have been involved in several incidents involving cyclists. You mention that a number of signs in the town have been obscured or removed by the council and you are indeed correct in stating that this makes the job of enforcement even harder. It is the duty of the council to notify pedestrians and cyclists regarding the areas of the town which should not be cycled through.
A few thoughts.
The duty of enforcement is made harder by not having any police patrolling to enforce the law. Enforcement is made harder again by those occasional patrols not enforcing the law. I had heard a long-term Community Support Officer giving wrong advice to an elderly couple who’d had to avoid a cyclist and drawn his attention to said cyclist. He said he was entitled to cycle on the darkened town centre paving that signal the access route for vehicles. Wrong. I have never seen a police officer stop a cyclist in Hastings Town Centre. As in the featured photo at the top of the page. They just sat in the car for an over an hour and didn’t stop a single cyclist who went past. With ‘action’ like this, it’s no wonder that people are getting the wrong idea. Continue reading “Hastings Police Force are part of the cycling problem.”
