E-scooters are banned from Cheltenham festival after police raised concerns over drunken punters riding them after dark last year
- E-scooters are banned at this year’s Cheltenham Festival throughout the week
- Gloucestershire Police complained of drunk people riding them in dark last year
- Click here for the latest Cheltenham Festival news, schedule and race results
Horse racing fans at this year’s Cheltenham Festival may find themselves on foot when going about town after the council banned e-scooters throughout the week.
The decision was made after police raised concerns of drunk people riding them after dark.
As a result, the council agreed to suspend the vehicles much to the disappointment of e-scooter operator Zwings, The Times reports.
The controversial bikes are available for hire in more than 30 towns and cities, where they are allowed on roads and pathways by local authorities. This is in line with a government experiment to see if they are suitable enough for a wider rollout as green transport.
Gloucestershire Police raised concerns of ‘clearly intoxicated’ people speeding about town in the evenings during last year’s festival, saying they could ‘create all sorts of accidents’.
E-scooters have been banned in Cheltenham throughout this week’s horse racing festival
Racegoers arrive ahead of day three of the Cheltenham Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse
This map on Zwings’ website showed the route e-scooter riders could take to travel from the station to the racecourse
The force’s commissioner Chris Nelson said: ‘I saw people and they were clearly intoxicated getting on these things, more than one person, and then scooting down Evesham Road, weaving in and out of the public.
‘What I saw last November was a whole load of e-scooters parked up outside the entrance to the racecourse and I think that was a hostage to fortune.’
Despite these criticisms, Zwings, which operates the e-scooters, has stressed there were no accidents during the event last year.
The Chelthanham Festival is one of the highlights in the horse racing calendar and brings 250,000 visitors to the Cotswolds town every years.
Shaun West, deputy chief constable at Gloucestershire Police, said this year’s festivities come at a difficult time with A&E patients being sent to Gloucester hospital instead of Cheltenham due to NHS strikes.
He added the importance of ‘keeping people safe’ and ‘preventing injury at a time when hospitals are very busy’.
He said: ‘Any effort to attempt to minimise the impact of that, of course should be an admirable ambition.’
Gloucestershire County Council has been approached for comment.
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