Life in Tower Street before the current works

I MET a woman this week who was fuming, absolutely livid, and it was hard not to see why.

Julia Jeuvell, the owner of Choosing Keeping in Tower Street, Covent Garden, has watched her shop become penned in by hire bikes. For three years she has tried to get the authorities and the companies involved to take notice. So far, she says, little has changed.

Neither she nor neighbouring businesses had any real say in whether a parking bay would be slapped bang opposite their premises. This is central London, after all, and with the rapid growth of Lime in particular, the predictable consequence has been bikes dumped here, there, and everywhere.

Harrington will not be alone in wondering just how many bikes are now in circulation and whether there are simply too many for the city’s pavements. It is an issue that keeps resurfacing across different councils.

Ms Jeuvell said the introduction of the bay led to an “exacerbated sense of insecurity” and that there had been a sharp rise in anti-social behaviour and drug-dealing in the street.

Lime disputes that its bikes can be used as getaway vehicles, but the impression has grown that they can serve as useful tools for phone-snatchers and drug carriers.

According to Ms Jeuvell, the overflow of dumped bikes, strewn across the pavement and road, has also blocked crossings and important access routes.

She said: “I think that the councillors, and Labour government, like to cosy up to tech companies like Lime. They show a general disdain for small businesses like ours.

“It’s like we are something on their shoe that they are trying to put to the side.

“We are told that things are being done, but basically nothing has been done since the problem started in 2023.”

In May 2025 Camden Council – the street sits just over Westminster’s borough boundary – agreed to extend contracts with e-bike firms Lime and Forest for another year, citing the “significant and growing” number of residents who use the bikes across the borough as its reasoning.

There has been some respite in Tower Street. The parking bay outside Choosing Keeping has been out of service since last month while public realm works take place.

But Ms Jeuvell said that, just as when it first appeared, there had been no consultation from either the council or Lime on when it would return. And she felt she had been “ghosted” by Lime.

She made a deputation to an environmental scrutiny meeting on January 12. It was the same meeting at which Holborn ward councillor Awale Olad told a senior representative from Lime that the company was “terrible, mendacious, and irresponsible”, and said it should not be operating in London.

That, however, was his personal view and not that of the ruling Labour group, which has sought to work with operators and says it values the service they provide.

Ms Jeuvell asked: “If they [Lime] are so mendacious, then why do the council continue working with them?”

Choosing Keeping, which sells a carefully curated selection of stationery from across the globe, first opened on Columbia Road in 2012 before moving to the Seven Dials area in
2018.

Harrington always tries to find out what’s been going on, so a call was put in to Lime.

A spokesperson said: “We recognise that there are challenges posed by the lack of parking in central London. We never want our bikes to get in anyone’s way. There is a clear need for more designated parking locations to meet the growing demand for our bikes, and our priority is working with Camden Council to help make this happen.

“Last year, through our London Action Plan, we helped fund more than 1,100 new e-bike parking bays across London, a 47 per cent increase since the year prior. This brings the total number of bays we’ve helped create in London to more than 3,400, including the latest phase of new parking bays in Camden.”

A council spokesperson said: “The council is developing plans to move the bay and will consult on this as soon as possible.”

Such comments are likely to feel too vague for Ms Jeuvell.

After three years of trying to get action you can hardly blame her for being wary.