E Bike and E Scooter Seizures

Response

Avon and Somerset Police holds information on the subject you have requested. However, we will not be able to answer your request without exceeding the appropriate limit. This is because the information is not centrally recorded and would involve an extensive search of our files to find and collate.

There is no specific data entry field on our systems that would enable us to identify the number of electric scooters or e-bikes seized via an automated search. While some data is held in relation to items that have come in our recovery scheme, this does not cover all seized e-scooters or e-bikes. A manual review of every seizure notice recorded in the specified timeframe would be required to identify this information. We estimate that this would take more than 18 hours to complete.

Section 12 of the Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for police authorities is set at £450 or 18 staff hours. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2.5 working days in determining whether the department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting it.

This letter represents a Refusal Notice under the Act.

To assist further, I can advise that some e-scooters and e-bikes are seized via our recovery scheme. Please see the figures below.

*Data for 2025 is correct as of the date of research, 14 July 2025.

E-scooters seized via the recovery scheme:

2024 – 8

2025* – 10

E-bikes seized via the recovery scheme:

2024 – 49

2025* – 48