'Petrified' Northumberland residents want motorbike, e-bike, and e-scooter disorder crackdown, Ashington councillor says

That was the word from Labour councillor Caroline Ball, who warned that some people were also scared to go into town centres due to the issue.

Cllr Gordon Stewart, cabinet member for communities, admitted it was a hard issue to tackle for both the council and the police, who are not allowed to pursue offenders on motorbikes, e-scooters or e-bikes for fear of knocking them off their vehicle and causing serious injuries.

Speaking at Wednesday’s meeting of Northumberland County Council, Cllr Ball said the council needed to do more and stop “passing the buck” to police.

She said: “Motorbike, e-bike, and e-scooter disorder is a complaint many councillors have in their inbox on a weekly basis.

"It is scary. There are people that are petrified to leave their house, to go shopping in the town centre.

“When we have shop keepers already struggling this is an issue we need to tackle as a county council. What are we going to do?

"It seems like we are passing the buck to the police and we do have a responsibility.

“We have a role in Northumberland: education, licensing, getting out there and letting people know how to report this.”

Responding to Cllr Ball, Cllr Stewart said there was a “multi-agency response” to the issue but admitted more information was needed.

He said: “This is something that is a challenge across all of Northumberland. Tackling the issue is not straight forward.

“The police have the power to seize bikes, but are not permitted to pursue bikes and e-scooters.

"They have recently used drones to seize a number of bikes in north Northumberland and this could be rolled out by other neighbourhood policing teams.

“We need to actively encourage the reporting of bike disorder. We lack information at the moment.

"We have got to reassure the public that the information that they provide is confidential.”

Cllr Stewart also revealed that a new scheme was operating in the Hirst area of Ashington, one of the worst-affected wards in the county, that would allow people to report incidents anonymously.