Thousands of Brighton students are now leaving the city for the final time – and hundreds of them will also be leaving their bikes to rust in the street.
Brighton and Hove City Council received almost 1,000 reports of abandoned bikes – many of which were left behind by students.
Bike inspections are now taking place, with seemingly abandoned bikes marked with a yellow sticker informing the owner they have 14 days to remove it.
A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove Council said: “Last year we received reports of 935 abandoned bikes. Of these 389 were eventually scrapped. We average at around 75 to 80 reports a month.
“All the bikes which are sent for scrap are in obvious poor condition. If a bike looks new we would leave it for longer.
“Many of the abandoned bikes are left by students who have bought the bike cheaply and left it behind when moving out of the city.”
The Friends of Bedford Square site is urging departing students to take their bikes with them.
It says: “Please if you want to leave your bike behind when you move to pastures new, donate it, recycle it, don’t just leave it to rust.”
Most of the abandoned reports come through the council website or the Cityclean call centre.
When it has a significant number of abandoned bikes which have gone past the 14 days, officers go out and collect them.
They are then scrapped and the parts recycled.
If you think a bike has been abandoned, you can report it here.
We’re hoping to set up a bike library at Sussex Uni next year where we collect up all these abandonded bikes, repair them and retn them out to people really cheap.
Sounds like it won’t be hard to find old bikes! Aparently the university have 100 in storage too!