'Criminal use of e-bikes and e-scooters increasing'

More needs to be done to clamp down on criminals increasing use of e-scooters and e-bikes, a police and crime commissioner (PCC) said.

Matthew Barber, the Thames Valley's PCC, said officers have seized 1,200 of the vehicles in the region so far this year and 112 in the past month.

The force said criminals use of them was particularly notable in Bracknell and Thatcham, Berkshire, and officers are using a new forensic spray to track them down rather than chasing them through the streets.

The Smart Tag spray is only detected by an ultra-violet light and has a unique forensic code relating to the pressurised canister it was sprayed from.

"We need to make sure that there's a way of using [the vehicles] safely, within the rules, and then allowing the police to focus on those who are committing offences, who are using these vehicles to evade police and really bear down heavily on them," Barber said.

He said increasing use means it will be "difficult to put the genie back in the bottle".

But he added clearer regulations would make it easier for people to understand what is legal and what is not.

Currently e-scooters in council-operated schemes, such as those in Oxford, Slough and on the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton, can be legally used on roads and cycle lanes but privately owned ones cannot.

"There's a lot of confusion from the public around what they are allowed to do and what they're not allowed to do," Barber said.

"For example, conversion kits that will convert a legal e-bike to an illegal e-bike: it's illegal to do the conversion but it's not illegal to sell the kit to do that.

"We rapidly need to update the legislation around that."

In February, transport secretary Heidi Alexander said the government was looking to introduce new rules to regulate e-scooters' use.

She said regulations covering speed limits and safety requirements, like lights and working brakes, would be introduced as soon as possible.