
Authorities have been urged to crack down on the the menace of yellow bikes amid widespread dumping of hire bicycles in Britain's front gardens and canals.

The country's biggest cities including London, Manchester and Birmingham have been flooded with thousands of bikes over the past year courtesy of Chinese companies such as Ofo and Mobike, which charge users as little as 50p for an hour.

Portrayed as an environmentally-friendly alternative to driving, the concept has actually led to stolen or damaged bikes littering public spaces and private property, with enraged pedestrians and homeowners bemoaning the firms' slowness in clearing up the mess.

Photos shared on social media show the bicycles - referred to as a 'yellow plague' by one local authority - left in all sorts of antisocial places, from clogging up walkways to disregarded on railway tracks.

In many cases, local authorities and neighbourhood police teams are tasked with reporting the dumping of bikes, as the rental firms struggle to cope with the vandalism on their own.

The issue has become so widespread across the world that many cities have outright banned the concept, with the government in Vienna seizing hundreds of bikes this month to combat the public nuisance.

A Ofo bike is left hanging from high up in a tree in Hammersmith, one of several incidents of anti-social use that has led to calls for more regulation over hire bicycles

A Ofo bike sits at the bottom of a canal in Rotherhithe, in yet another example of the perils of dockless hiring across the UK

Portrayed as an environmentally-friendly alternative to driving, the concept has actually led to stolen or damaged bikes littering public spaces and pavements (shown in Camden)

Photos shared on social media show the bicycles, referred to as a 'yellow plague' by one local authority, clogging up walkways and disregarded on river banks (shown near London Bridge)

In June, authorities in Paris signed codes of conduct with operators to 'prevent pavement blockages' and ensure the removal of faulty or illegally parked bikes, with critics claiming a similar scheme is needed in the UK.

Dockless bike schemes have experienced huge growth in Asia since 2016 and launched in several European cities in 2017, including London.

New York also recently announced a pilot scheme whereby a handful of selected operators would be allowed to release a limited number of bikes onto the streets, but similar incidents of vandalism have been reported.

Dockless bikes, as the name suggests, are not housed in a docking station like London's Boris bikes, and are therefore left wherever the previous user's journey ended.

Vienna seizes all 'nuisance' hire bikes across the city City authorities in Vienna declared victory this month in their clampdown on dockless bike sharing schemes which they said were cluttering up public spaces. Under rules which entered into force on August 1, and which effectively ban such schemes, 780 bikes had been seized, representing virtually all such bikes in the Austrian capital. The ability to park oBike and Ofo's bikes anywhere was a convenience for users but city authorities complained they were becoming a nuisance in public spaces and operators were not repairing vandalised bikes quickly enough. Most of the bikes seized belonged to oBike, which authorities say has been hard to contact since it fell into financial difficulties. The schemes have attracted negative headlines across the world over vandalism and clutter. In June, authorities in Paris signed codes of conduct with operators of similar schemes to 'prevent pavement blockages' and ensure the removal of faulty or illegally parked bikes. Advertisement

Customers use an app, where similarly to Uber they add their card details, to locate the nearest bike and use the phone's camera to unlock the back wheel by scanning a bar code on the frame.

However the hire companies mainly rely on other users to report misuse and dumped bikes, with a small team tasked with tracking them down and fixing them.

While the firms claim they can fine users whose bikes were damaged while they were renting them, would-be vandals can easily throw them off of bridges or into rivers without renting them and entering personal details.

Dozens of social media users are now calling on the hire companies and local authorities to take action.

Debora Robertson tweeted: 'You know Hackney Council aggressively pursue and fine businesses who place A-boards outside, and yet wretched Ofo litter the streets seemingly unhindered.

'Absolute menace - they're dumped on the pavement outside my house almost daily. Next one's going in a skip.'

User @GeeEssBee shared a photograph of a Ofo bike dumped beside the Royal Docks in east London.

He added: 'I'm almost certain the life buoy that's supposed to be here would be vastly superior in terms of its lifesaving ability than yet another discarded example of the street litter dockless hire bike plague.'

Ofo is considered to be the largest dockless bike firm, with more than 250million customers worldwide.

The company currently has more than 2,000 bikes available in 10 London boroughs, with plans to eventually increase that number to 150,000.

However other firms have also attracted the ire of pedestrians and property owners, such as the orange and silver bikes of fellow Chinese giant Mobike.

A Ofo hire bike dumped in water in the River Wensum, near St Miles Bridge in Norwich, can be seen from the walkway above

A photograph taken at the Royal Docks in east London shows an Ofo bike hanging from a stand meant for a lifebuoy (pictured)

The hire companies mainly rely on other users to report misuse and dumped bikes, with a small team tasked with tracking them down and fixing them (a hire bike dumped in Wanstead Park)

Ofo hire bikes are lined up along a pavement in Camden, north west London, leaving little space for pedestrians to pass through

Dozens of social media users are now calling on the hire companies and local authorities to take action (another bike shown in Regent's Canal, east London)

The firm has hundreds of bikes in populated areas such as Manchester and Leeds.

But Mobike has ran into similar problems of vandalism, and was forced to raise its rental fee from 50p to 69p to encourage users to 'treat bikes respectfully'.

So how does dockless bike hire work? Dockless bikes, as the name suggests, are not housed in a docking station like London's Boris bikes, and are therefore left wherever the previous user's journey ended. Customers use an app, where similarly to Uber they add their card details, to locate the nearest bike and use the phone's camera to unlock the back wheel by scanning a bar code on the frame. However the hire companies mainly rely on other users to report misuse and dumped bikes, with a small team tasked with tracking them down and fixing them. While the firms claim they can fine users whose bikes were damaged while they were renting them, would-be vandals can easily throw them off of bridges or into rivers without renting them and entering personal details. Advertisement

Bike sharing company oBike, which also uses yellow bicycles, fell foul of Wandsworth council last year after the local authority seized 130 of its bikes.

In a statement, the council called oBike 'the company that's flooded London with a rash of yellow rental bikes', as it labelled the concept a 'yellow bike plague'.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) told MailOnline that 'carelessly discarded' dockless bikes were a 'real hazard' for those with reduced sight.

Francesca Di Giorgio, RNIB Policy Manager, said: 'Under the Highways Act 1980, pavements should be kept free from obstructions.

'We look forward to continuing our work with dockless bike operators, including Ofo and Mobike, and local authorities to find a solution to this issue which will enable people with sight loss to get around safely and with confidence.'

Michael Hurwitz, director of innovation at Transport for London, told MailOnline that it was considering a unified system of regulation across the city to improve the issue.

He said: 'We're working hard to make cycling easier and more accessible across London, so we welcome the growth in dockless cycle hire schemes, as well as growth for our own popular Santander Cycles.

'However, it is vital that dockless operators work closely with us and the boroughs to ensure their schemes are safely and responsibly managed, so we can avoid the disruptive and dangerous clutter of abandoned bikes that we have seen in some cities around the world.

'We are pursuing a pan-London approach to managing dockless operators with London Councils, which could include a new bye-law to help ensure that schemes are safe and responsibly managed with local issues in mind.'

Ofo has been contacted by MailOnline for comment.

A hire bike discarded in Newham, east London, which Twitter user @Amit_Mayfair claims to have reported more than a week ago