"What evidence do you have that Brompton "financed" the new facility?Allowing (as I do not) that they bought the site, we still should not have let them do so.As for your analysis of their promotional plan, "simples" does not even begin to describe it..."Sometimes I despair. Brompton Dock is a standalone company - it pays rent (to councils) to secure space for it's Brompton bike docks.The bike docks bring a cheap, space efficient cycle hire solution to places that otherwise would not have one. The Boris bikes are unlikely to ever reach suburbs like Ealing - the central London model loses money and in outer London, the costs of collecting / delivering bikes over a much wider area would make the scheme an even bigger loss maker.What's more of a question is whether the new cycle parking at Ealing is fit for purpose. They seem to have spent several hundred thousand pounds, and an inordinate amount of time to build cycle parking that doesn't even have enough space to meet current demand, let alone future demand. There are more temporary racks than the permanent space will house, yet all of these are regularly full, with an overflow on surrounding railings / lamp posts.Ealing council don't seem to have understood current demand or factored in future demand given that the design could have included double height bike racks (as used at some Network Rail stations) to meet current demand and provide c80% more space for future demand.
Chris Martin ● 4997d