BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
The third annual Cycle Crime Conference, hosted by BikeRegister in association with British Transport Police, has took place in Birmingham last week.
Following on from last year’s successful event, officers from 28 police forces attended the one-day cycle crime conference, along with key partners from the cycling, education and security industries The theme for this year’s conference was Bike Crime – Breaking the Cycle, with speakers highlighting the numerous initiatives being undertaken nationally to tackle bike crime.
Around 150 delegates attended the lectures about successful operations to reduce cycle theft and share best practice on cycle crime solutions. Andy Gregory, former police sergeant from West Midlands Police chaired the event, which also featured the 2017 Cycle Crime Awards ceremony and the results of the 2017 National Cycle Crime Survey.
There were also presentations from a number of expert guest speakers including detective chief inspector Darren Malpas from BTP, whose overview on cycle crime opened the conference. Sarah Burr from Transport for London spoke about the impact of cycle crime in London, while Fergus Campbell from Gumtree explained what steps the auction site is taking to tighten the net on bike thieves.
Belinda Hopkins from University of Oxford spoke on countering university bike theft following the introduction of a BikeRegister scheme across all Oxford colleges whilst wing commander Keith Dear gave insight into how feeling watched can change the behaviour of a bike thief.
BikeRegister MD James Brown commented: “We are thrilled with the success of our third Cycle Crime Conference and are very grateful to the many police forces and industry partners who attended. Our concern is that after the big strides made over the last four years, police forces are taking resources away from tackling cycle crime. As a result, we are seeing huge spikes in bicycle theft in many areas of the UK, in some jurisdictions by up to 50 per cent. With cycle journeys rapidly increasing, we should be increasing not decreasing our combined efforts.”
He concluded: “A highlight of the conference was the 2017 Cycle Crime Awards which pay tribute to the great work being done by so many police forces and partners using BikeRegister to fight bike crime.
