Uni pumps up security to foil bike thieves

Auckland City police want to identify this man captured on CCTV on June 9 at the Grafton campus of the University of Auckland.

Auckland University has stepped up security patrols around its bike parks after a petition was sparked by a wave of thefts.

Police are looking for two men pictured allegedly using bolt-cutters to take bikes from outside the university's Grafton medical school on Wednesday, believing they may also have been responsible for raids on a campus lock-up off Symonds St.

One had a high-visibility vest which area crime prevention manager Sergeant Roy Simpson suspects was used to dampen the curiosity of potential witnesses. Neither was wearing a helmet.

Mr Simpson fears the pair have been stealing bikes to order and students' association president Paul Smith says the uni has been hit by "an almost industrial scale of thefts".

One student said he understood about 30 bikes had been stolen in a month from the city campus, before the university added closely woven steel mesh last week to stop thieves prising their way into the cage.

Another is grateful to have received back a mountain bike stolen from the cage in April, for which he paid $3300 in 2011 and on which he said police found someone "doing wheelies" around Otara recently.

Mr Simpson confirmed an upsurge in thefts from the university over the past two months.

He is pleased the university has installed CCTV cameras in a walkway allowing all-hours access to the cage, which he said was previously ill-lit.

He is urging all bike owners to record serial numbers to add to a police-sponsored online data base at www.snap.org.nz.

But the university is being pressed to provide more secure facilities to cater for growing numbers of cyclists, some of whom are arriving at lectures via the Transport Agency's new bikeway through Grafton Gully.

A spokeswoman said after a meeting with the university's cycling club on Friday it was looking at more opportunities to increase safe storage for bikes, and had boosted security patrols around existing facilities.

Cycling club secretary Jono Wood said the storage cage provided only 33 bike parks for about 30,000 students and staff, and a lot more facilities were needed.