23
Aug
2017
By Calvin at 13:59 GMT, 8 years ago
Behind my house in Hillingdon is a very large and beautiful nature reserve. We go blackberry picking there, there are vast fields of wild flowers and you’ll often see horse riders using the bridleways. A great neighbour of ours, now long deceased, had the bright idea to plant hundreds of trees out the back some 25 years ago and we now have some fantastic walks through the woods and a huge variety of wildlife – and all behind my house in London.
You would think this to be the most idyllic of locations and it is for about 90% of the time. Then, just to ruin it for everyone else, along come the morons on their scrambling motorcycles! The council have done their best to keep them out by erecting some pretty decent barriers and gates, but they usually manage to overcome them by lifting the bikes over the top (they come in pairs). Then they churn up the paths and bridleways, cause danger to pedestrians using the many footpaths and make one hell of a din.
I understand that our local police garage send out their own officers on suitable bikes to catch them from time to time with some success, but still the morons return, so it is with great satisfaction that I just read that Hampshire Police have had some success against this form of anti-social behaviour quite recently.
To cut a long story short, at the beginning of this month officers from Havant’s Neighbourhood Policing Team carried out an operation on some land south of the A3(M) where the same type of morons were doing the exact same thing as they do here.
Since the campaign was launched (Operation Herd – nice name for it) three motorbikes have been seized and four people have been issued a summons for offences including driving without licences and without appropriate safety equipment. Two boys were fined £45 and £50 and other cases are still making their way through the court process.
Offences included: riding without helmets, driving elsewhere than on a road, and failing to stop for Police.
The police report goes on to tell us that the safety of pedestrians and other road users had been affected by irresponsible use of these vehicles and that Havant Borough Council’s Environmental Health Team can issue (and probably have issued) noise abatement notices to riders causing a statutory noise nuisance. Nice!
As I said, reading this report gave me some satisfaction that our police can and do step in to deal with this type of nuisance. So, if you’re affected by this sort of thing then might I suggest you report it immediately to your own local policing team. I certainly shall be.
The full police report can be read here: https://www.hampshire.police.uk/news/general/havants-neighbourhood-policing-team-continues-tackle-motorcycle-related-nuisance-dunsbury-hill-farm/
