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Again, I'll only touch it if the council says so
Council can only remove, the council does not own the bike. Hence the bike is disposed of. Usually to a cycling charity we would hope.
lynx-
Chances are, since I've told the council, the council is going to report it to either the police or the local highways agency who are responsible for the maintenance of the streets. The police will class it as found property. Usually the legalities are that if it isn't claimed within a set number of days (which they decide) it either goes to scrap, gets given to the person who reports it, or gets sold at a police auction. As for the highways agency, they'd probably do similar, but instead just impound it until someone claims it.
Basically, I've just said 'if nobody wants it, I'll have it'. Not excluding any of the above.
ggreen
Streetview only goes to April 2018, it wasn't there then. My dad vaguely remembers it being there in 2019, it had a matching red front wheel. Other than that, there's no solid date attached to how long it's been there. I've rarely used the route it's on so I haven't been going past it regularly at all. Not enough to know enough datewise.
I also have plenty of bikes, as I said in the OP. It's not like I need another one. It would just be nice to 'recover a bike instead of having it destroyed', if you've been reading.
Not sure where the hostility's coming from. Again, I'll only touch it if the council says so. Otherwise it's staying there, and I'll forget about it. End of.