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MCC News, Issue 39, Feb/March 2006
Love
Yr Bike
Join cyclists from all
over London for Love Yr Bike, a full day celebration of cycling at the
Commonside Centre, South Lodge Ave, Mitcham on February 11th from 10am.
Originally devised to
mark the end of the successful Re:Cycle project in which youngsters were taught
how to repair, upgrade and maintain bikes that had been donated or abandoned
and named for the forthcoming St Valentines Day, the event has now grown to
become the largest social event for cyclists in London.
The four separate areas
at Commonside will be filled with non-stop bike-related entertainment. There's a
series of talks and discussions on items ranging from the merits of cycling
clothing to how to buy a secondhand bike or find the best route to work,
there's Yoga for Cycling, a live wheel building demonstration, a Cycling
Cinema, a cycle jumble with a wide range of cycle accessories at bargain
prices, there's a Dr Bike to sort out any minor problems on your own machine, a
free healthy cyclist's lunch and lots of competitions and quizzes for all ages
with some great prizes. Jenny Jones, the Mayor's Road Safety Ambassador, London
Assembly Member and keen cyclist herself will be addressing the masses and then
taking questions. Merton council will be providing free cycle training and the
police will be around to advise on how to prevent your bike being stolen.
More events are being
added daily and a website has been set up at: www.love-yr-bike.co.uk
Doors open at 10am and
the event ends at 4:30pm with an 8 mile celebratory ride around the quiet
streets and traffic-free paths led by the Pollards Hill Cyclists.
For more information or
to request an interview or photo, please contact
Mark Dawson or Suzanne
West at info@love-yr-bike.co.uk
or 07711 688189 / 020 8764
9582
__________________________________________________________________
TWO HOURS TRAINING
FROM AN ACCREDITED CYCLING INSTRUCTOR FOR £5 FROM MERTON CYCLING CAMPAIGN.
Become more assertive,
more confident, more knowledgeable and a safer cyclist.
Tel Godwin on 020 8543
3442.
__________________________________________________________________
Questions
& Answers
A Second Interview with
Sergeant Nick Tittle, Merton Police Borough Problem Solving Advisor,
Metropolitan Police.
Q: Why have you
asked MCC to help you with the problem of bike theft in Wimbledon Town Centre?
A: I think when
you’re trying to solve a problem it’s important to do things with, not to, the
people the problem affects.
Q: OK, so what is
the problem you are trying to solve?
A: In November last
year our analysis
told us:
• 489 bikes were stolen
in the Borough between April and October, making Merton the 13th highest
borough in London, at an estimated total cost of £180,000, assuming a value of
£368 for each bike;
• Just under half of all
thefts occurred around 3 hotspots:
* Wimbledon Town Centre, with particular areas for concern
being the Queen’s Road cycle rack
opposite the Police Station, the region outside the railway station, various points along the Broadway and in
the vicinity of Sainsbury’s in
Worple Rd;
* The bike rack at Latimer Road swimming baths;
* Colliers Wood, around the SavaCentre and in the Abbey Mills
area;
• 86% of all bikes stolen
were LOCKED.
Either Bolt Croppers or
similar implement were used to damage the lock;
• The makes most
frequently stolen were Trek (33), Specialised (31), Apollo (30) and Raleigh
(29).
Q: Interesting
but what do you want MCC to do?
A: Well,
remember that in our previous conversation about the problem of cycling on the
pavement I talked about the nine stages of the problem solving process. The first stage of the process is Demand, or
who is making the demand and what are they asking for?
In this case, the demand
is coming from Safer Merton, the local Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership,
which is measured by the Home Office, through Government Office for London,
against performance targets, including theft of pedal cycles. They need to reduce the number of bikes
stolen so they have high interest in solving the problem and high power.
Remember, it’s difficult
for campaigning groups, like MCC, to generate this kind of demand. They may have high interest in a problem but
lack power: the trick is to move from a position of low power to high power.
Remember, the Mayor’s
Office is pushing to do something because of concern that theft may inhibit the
growth of cycling as an alternative means of transport.
The second and third
stages are the Perceived Problem and the Perceived Aim that may be redefined as
the Actual Problem and the Actual Aim following the fourth and fifth stages,
Research and Analysis.
Now, we have already done
some research and analysis which told us the sort of things I mentioned earlier
but it is here, at this stage, that the contribution of MCC really kicks in, to
confirm, or challenge, and interpret, or make sense of, what we already know.
The sixth stage is
Options, or, what can we do? This is
the creative stage and we have to be really disciplined here not to think about
the reasons why something might not work.
That test, the reality test, comes in at the seventh stage, Responses,
what we actually do. You can see these
two stages require two very different charactereristics. Creativity requires thinking without
restraint, the freethinker, leftfield, thinking outside the box and any number
of other clichés. Responses requires the pragmatist ‘been there, done that and,
oh, by the way, it didn’t work.’
Q: OK, so what
are you going to do about bike theft in Wimbledon Town Centre?
A: I don’t know, we
haven’t had the meeting yet, but let me tell you how the thinking goes. We group the possible options, and then the
agreed responses, under the three points of the Problem Analysis Triangle,
Victim, Offender and Location. Crime
Prevention theory says you are likely to affect change if you alter one, or
more, points of the triangle. We then
group our options, and responses, as short, medium and long term.
A: You need to
explain this a bit more.
Q: OK,
traditionally, the police focus on the offender element of the triangle, the
thief, on the basis that if you identify, arrest, charge and successfully
prosecute him the problem will be solved.
This response tends to be done in the short-term, say within the first three
months, because that’s what the police do, that’s their job and they can do it
quite quickly.
However, there are two
problems. First, the police may, or may not, arrest the thief and second,
experience from the illegal drugs trade indicates that arresting any particular
dealer creates a vacancy which is occupied by another dealer. So, arresting the offender is a short-term
response likely to produce a short-term solution.
The other typical
short-term response is some form of awareness raising with the intention of
modifying the behaviour of potential victims, typically leaflets, stickers and
property marking of some kind. The
underlying assumption here is that the victim has done something, or not done
something, that has contributed directly to the theft, and that if he had done
it differently the theft could not have taken place and the problem would not
arise.
The problem here is that
the victim may
have done all that he
reasonably could but the theft still happened.
This is one of the main reasons why I want to talk to MCC. If cyclists leave their bikes in Wimbledon
Town Centre, properly locked to bike stands in busy public places in view of
CCTV what more could they have done to stop the thief cutting the lock with
bolt-cutters in full view of other people?
Responses in the medium term,
say three to six months, tend to be things you have to buy in.Changes to the
streetscape or the built environment, tend to be more difficult and so fall
into the long term, say six months to a year.
Q: What do you
see as MCC’s continuing involvement?
A: After we’ve
looked at options and responses I would like to establish what’s called a
Problem Specific Key Individual Network to help monitor the impact of what is
being done and be a member of the Wimbledon Town Centre Bike Theft Problem
Solving Group.
Q: Bikes are
stolen all over the Borough, not just in Wimbledon Town Centre: what are you
doing about that?
A: I know but
you have to start somewhere and the Town Centre was identified as a
hotspot. There is a similar problem in
Colliers Wood, although not on the same scale, so maybe we can transfer there
some of what we do in Wimbledon. Bikes
stolen from communal areas of flats or garden sheds are different kind of
problems altogether.
Here’s a list of websites
your readers may find useful: