City of Greater Geraldton review of e-scooters, amid east coast concerns with e-rideable organisation Beam

The City of Geraldton Council will await results from an independent review before deciding whether to cancel the lease of e-scooters in the city, amid multiple concerns from the east coast. The ABC reported on Wednesday that Canberra was the latest city to cut ties with Beam over allegedly exceeding fleet caps, with Brisbane and Townsville previously cancelling contracts. Safety concerns have also been cited, with the City of Melbourne opting to remove all shared e-scooters by September 24 as a result. City of Greater Geraldton deputy mayor Natasha Colliver said an independent review was being conducted regarding e-scooters. “Beam has engaged an independent auditor to audit all of their sites, including Geraldton,” she said. “We’ll await the outcome of that which will be provided to us.” The e-scooter licence in Geraldton was granted in December 2023 for two years, following a successful trial where 2000 people gave feedback. According to the city at the time, more than two thirds were in support of the service. Cr Colliver said 350 e-scooters were available in Geraldton, and said they had been beneficial for the community. “There’s a really good community benefit in having e-scooters available as an alternative mode of transport, not only for our local community but also from a tourism perspective,” she said. “We’ve all seen people down at the foreshore really enjoying being able to scoot all the way along from one end of the foreshore to the other.” She added the situation in the more populated areas was different to Geraldton. “Brisbane council has removed Beam but they still have e-scooters,” Cr Colliver said. “The CBD in Melbourne is crazy busy, there’s hundreds of thousands of people there every single day. “I can imagine it would be a very different situation than what we’ve got here in Geraldton.” Cr Colliver said the Singapore-based organisation had maintained open dialogue with the City. Although she said the e-scooters had been beneficial to the community, she added the agreement was a lease for Beam to park their vehicles on council land, which could be revoked at any stage without cost to the City. A spokesperson from Beam confirmed a legal firm was appointed to conduct an external investigation, and the findings would be shared with council partners and other key stakeholders once investigations were completed.