Police seize five off-road bikes and e-bikes in Hall Green area

Anti-social use of bikes and discarded nitrous oxide - laughing gas - cannisters were the main topics discussed at Hall Green PACT (Police and Communities Together) meeting on September 14.

Sgt Reece Cooper, of Wakefield Rural Neighbourhood Policing Team, told the meeting: "Off road motorbikes have been another big issue recently. We have had five seizures of off-road motorbikes in the last 28 days.

"Two of those were from the Daw Green area. The others were from Crigglestone and Painthorpe Lane.”

Sgt Cooper told the meeting at Hall Green Community Centre that two of the bikes seized were electric and three were motorbikes.

Police can now use Section 59 orders which give UK police the power to immediately seize motorcycles, off-road bikes, or illegal e-bikes being ridden in an anti-social manner.

Sgt Cooper said: "The new rules in the section 59 means we can now go in to their gardens and seize the bikes.

"We have got to see that bike being ridden in an anti-social manner. If we see that bike in a garden we can then go in to that garden and seize it, where as previously we wouldn't have been able to do that.

Crigglestone Parish Councillor Jane Ellis said: "They use most of Crigglestone as a race track."

Coun Ellis said volunteer litter picking group the Crigglestone and Durkar Wombles have a problem knowing what to do with empty nitrous oxide cannisters they collect.

She said: "Before you get to Painthorpe there are lots in the bushes. The wombles will pick them up but nobody will take responsibility for taking them off their hands.

"We have a volunteer group that go round the whole of Crigglestone and they don't know what to do with the cannisters because they are getting conflicting information."

Sgt Cooper said: "It is the drug of choice at the moment unfortunately."