London's E-Bike Strategy: A Fragmented Approach Risks Commercial Chaos

The contrast could hardly be starker. Haringey Council has just locked in a four-year contract with both Lime and Forest to operate e-bikes across the north London borough, betting that competition between two providers will serve riders best. Just across the capital, Richmond is preparing to do precisely the opposite: push Lime out entirely and hand the whole market to Forest alone.

Two London councils, two opposing philosophies, and mounting evidence that the capital's fragmented approach to regulating its booming e-bike sector has become commercially incoherent.

A patchwork in search of a framework

Haringey's cabinet approved the dual-operator arrangement this week, formalising what had been a looser pilot into a contract running initially from April 2026 through March 2028, with annual extension options until 2030. The shift from a memorandum of understanding to a binding contract hands the council considerably more leverage over pricing, fleet sizes and service standards. According to council papers, e-bikes now account for more than 150,000 journeys monthly in the borough, transforming what was once experimental transport infrastructure into an embedded part of the local network.

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But Richmond officers have recommended Forest as their sole provider from this summer, a move that would effectively eject Lime from one of outer London's busiest e-bike markets. Council documents show Forest scored highest on officers' criteria, including service quality, user cost and value to taxpayers, though Lime reportedly performed strongly on quality measures alone. If councillors endorse the recommendation, Richmond residents will soon face a single-operator system whilst their counterparts a few miles north retain the ability to choose between two rival apps and pricing structures.

Each London borough currently regulates e-bikes independently, setting its own fleet caps, parking rules and operator agreements. That has produced a postcode lottery for riders and a fragmented commercial landscape for operators trying to build scale across the capital.

Lime insists the trend is towards multi-operator systems. 'Almost all London boroughs are moving to systems with a minimum of two operators to give residents a choice of shared e-bike services in the capital,' a spokesperson said, adding that the company hopes Richmond councillors will follow that model. Forest, unsurprisingly, disputes the premise, arguing its single-provider arrangement 'will bring clear benefits for riders in the borough, while the continued expansion of Forest's network will strengthen connectivity across the capital.'

What's interesting here is not which operator has the better claim, but that councils are making multi-year bets with such radically different assumptions about what constitutes good governance. Haringey's choice prioritises competition and user optionality. Richmond appears to be weighing financial returns and administrative simplicity more heavily. Both may be defensible, but the fact they're happening simultaneously, barely 10 miles apart, underscores the absence of any coherent London-wide strategy.

From pilots to parking bays

Haringey's move to formalise its contracts also reflects the operational reality councils now face. E-bikes are no longer a trial. They're infrastructure, and they require active management. The borough spent much of the past year fielding complaints about pavement clutter and accessibility, particularly from disability groups concerned about bikes blocking footways.

In April 2025, Haringey announced plans for at least 100 mandatory parking bays, with a longer-term target of 300 by the end of 2026. Operators now deploy more than 20 staff daily across the borough to reposition poorly parked bikes. The council also ran a year-long public consultation via the Commonplace platform, gathering input from residents, businesses and disability advocates on where parking infrastructure should be sited.

Councils initially welcomed e-bike operators with minimal oversight, eager to provide low-carbon transport options without upfront capital costs. But as fleets expanded and complaints mounted, boroughs found themselves without the formal tools to enforce standards or penalise poor performance.

That shift from laissez-faire pilot to managed market is telling. Contracts like Haringey's are the correction: a recognition that regulation must catch up with adoption.

Waiting for TfL

The question is whether any of this will matter in two years. Transport for London is expected to gain London-wide regulatory powers over e-bikes and e-scooters through the English devolution bill, which would allow the authority to impose consistent standards, fleet caps and operational requirements across all 32 boroughs. But timing remains uncertain, and the legislative process offers no guarantees.

That leaves councils in an awkward position. They can either defer decisions and let operators continue under informal arrangements, or lock in multi-year contracts that may be superseded by a pan-London framework before they expire. Haringey and Richmond have both chosen the latter, but the risk is clear: these procurements could be rendered obsolete by centralised regulation well before 2030.

For operators, the stakes are considerable. E-bike markets in major boroughs represent millions in annual revenue, and the difference between winning a two-operator contract and losing a single-provider tender is the difference between market access and exclusion. Lime and Forest are now competing not just on service quality but on their ability to navigate 32 separate procurement processes, each with different priorities and political pressures. The result is a turf war fought one borough at a time, with no clarity on when or whether a unified rulebook will arrive to replace it.

More articles by Ross Williams