Campus policeman Mick Parkes has devised one of the most comprehensive and cunning plans to deal with the issue of bike theft not just on the University of Warwick campus but the University’s whole  surrounding area.

PC Parkes has spent several months poring over maps of the current campus cycle parking  facilities. He will now work with University management to optimise those facilities to reduce thefts. He has been able to match West Midlands Police and University Funding to create a new set of special signs advising people to use D lock to secure their bikes. “I’ve almost never had a case in which a thief tried to tackle a D lock on a bike they are one of the best deterrents of bike theft available.”

However the cleverest part of PC Parkes’s plan is a new bike registration scheme with which he hopes to create a database of the bike frame numbers of every bike on campus. If this goes well he will also extend this registration scheme to the schools closest to campus. PC Parkes says:

“This will give us the same tools to deal with bike theft as my colleagues use with car theft. If we stop someone on or near the campus with a bike and if the new database says it’s not registered to you then you better have a really good explanation”.

PC Parkes will have special surgeries at which students can bring bikes to be registered at Wednesday lunchtimes in term time - details will be posted on the University’s website next term.

Photo call: There will be an opportunity to photograph PC Parkes with an armful of the new D lock signs at a bike rack at 10am on Monday 22^nd of March – photographers should go to University House reception and ask for Peter Dunn.

For further information please contact:

Peter Dunn, Head of Communications
Communications Office, University House,
University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 8UW, United Kingdom     
UK Tel: +44 (0)24 76 523708 Mobile +44 (0)7767 655860
email: p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk
Twitter:   @PeterJDunn

 PR31 19^th March 2010