To liberate or not to liberate?

There's an old Puch road frame that I've had my eye on locked up in Enfield town. It's a bit big for me, but it's kind of pretty and it's been there for about a year. My guess is it was owned by some elderly bloke (there's a few around the area riding ancient bikes at 5mph) who left it locked up and died - if that was the case it would be really sad to leave it to rust and fall apart. Does anyone know if there is a legal way of claiming it? Want to keep it on the good side of the law.

yeah dude, just ask your neighbors whether they know anything about it....but if its been there for a year thats an abandoned bike, and you wanna rescue it.